







A 





. . . /^\ ^'^m^^ y^^^ ^^y^^^\^^^% 









A 



^ %/ ;^>^^ Vo^' ^;^ %v^ ^^^ 

;o -n*. .^y-^ ,^.^fi^^^ %^^^<i' :^a;. \,cf^ »*^^'^ ^v^' 






^^' "^. 












-^^0^ 












''^ 









A 



A 









,0^ 



.0^ 



^Ov 
■^ 









^* -^y^ V -> 









THE 

History of Pittsfield 

Massachusetts 
From the Year 1876 to the Year 1916 



BY 

EDWARD BOLTWOOD 




PUBLISHED BY THE CITY OF PITTSFIELD 






^p 



PRESS OF THE 
EAGLE PRINTING AND BINDING CO. 

PITTSFIELD, MASS. 
1916 



FOREWORD 

NEARLY forty years had gone by since Joseph E. A. Smith 
had brought to its close his graphic story of the Town of 
Pittsfield. Meanwhile the town had given place to the 
city. The men and women who gave color to the life of the 
town had passed from the stage. It was still possible, however, 
to recall the tale of these years, the faces, the speech, the deeds, 
of those who had played their parts in it; but no time was to be 
lost. 

In 1913 and 1914 a group of men met at intervals to plan for 
putting the history of these four decades into permanent form. 
This loosely organized committee delegated its work to a smaller 
body of its number. The members of successive city govern- 
ments lent cordial aid and support to the plan and authorized 
grants from the city treasury in furtherance of it. The commit- 
tee found in Edward Boltwood a man fitted for the task of his- 
torian by family tradition, aptitude and inclination. His work 
in the following pages is published in the month of December 
1916 by the City of Pittsfield. 

For the Committee, 

Clement F. Coogan, 
George H. Tucker, 
William L. Adam. 



CONTENTS 

Page 

I PITTSFIELD IN 1876 1 

II Fifteen Years of Town Life 16 

III Town Government. 1876-189 1 32 

IV A Group of Townsmen 46 

V The Change from Town to City 64 

VI Phases of thf Citys Growth 78 

VII A Miscellany of City Life 93 

VIII The Conduct of Municipal Affairs, 

1891-1916 108 

IX Schools 130 

X Churches— I 148 

XI Churches— II 162 

XII The Berkshire Athenaeum and Museum . 175 

XIII Young Peoples Associations 190 

XIV The House of Mercy 205 

XV Charities and Benefactions 221 

XVI Military and Patriotic Organizations 233 

XVII Industrial and Financial 245 

XVIII Electrical Manufacturing 265 

XIX Law and Order 277 

XX Fire Department 290 

XXI Newspapers 303 

XXII Clubs, Theaters and Hotels 318 

XXIII Prominent Citizens 331 

XXIV The 150th Anniversary Celebration in 

1911 351 

XXV PITTSFIELD IN 1915 365 

Index 381 




nnnn'^SUoc 
ULJUU^nc 



History of Pittsfield 



CHAPTER I 
PITTSFIELD IN 1876 

THE subject of this narrative is the history of Pittsfield, in 
Massachusetts, from the year 1876 to the year 1916. 
Another hand has written of the town's settlement and 
earlier growth; and the two treasured volumes by Joseph E. A. 
Smith, dealing with Pittsfield from 1734 to 1876, testify no 
less to the studious labor of the antiquarian, and to the clear 
insight of the historical critic, than to the love of a poet for the 
romance and the beauty of the hills. The task imposed upon 
this book is to carry forward to our own day the annals of the 
town from the point at which they were left by Mr. Smith's 
diligent, graceful, and affectionate pen. 

The story to be told is one of peace. It can recount of the 
community no strange or dramatic vicissitude, no stormy broil 
of faction, no struggle in great wars. During the forty years 
which it embraces, Pittsfield changed much, but changed placid- 
ly; and the New England town became a New England city in 
New England fashion, with the outward calmness of Yankee self- 
restraint. 

In the centennial year of the Republic, Pittsfield was a town 
of twelve thousand inhabitants, occupying the same rectangular 
area of about forty square miles of pleasant Berkshire valley 
and highland that is enclosed by the present city limits. Over 
this territory, the population in 1876 was more evenly distributed 
than are the thirty-nine thousand people of Pittsfield in 1915, for 
outlying farms and factory villages, especially in the south- 
western part of the township, then claimed a larger proportion 
of its inhabitants. The central village, around Park Square, 
was thus described in 1872 by a professional writer, sent by the 



2 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

Springfield Republican to report the dedication of the Soldiers' 
Monument: 

"Pittsfield is no longer the quiet, dullish, somewhat dingy- 
village that some of us remember it, standing with Yankee re- 
serve in the midst of fine scenery, where it seemed a little out of 
place. It has become of late years a bustling, ambitious, archi- 
tectural town, almost a city and quite ready for the title, with 
fine public buildings that do not shrink behind trees for fear of 
being seen, lawns and parks, and gardens and fountains, and an 
abundance of 'carriage people', and stately horses parading the 
streets and avenues. Everywhere 'improvements' are going up; 
there are public works of various kinds; the streets and squares 
look less like a New England village than the fast-growing cities 
of the West". 

It shall be the endeavor of our first chapter to place the reader 
in the position of such a visitor to Pittsfield in 1876, who might 
have alighted at the triangular, brick railroad station, planted, 
with somewhat aggressive utility, nearly in the middle of West 
Street. 

His attention first would have been engaged by the Burbank 
Hotel, which occupied part of the site of the present station. 
Opened in 1871, it was a white, wooden structure of four floors, 
surmounted by a mansard roof, and graced by double-decked 
piazzas. A wing on the east was devoted to a public hall, with a 
stage and scenery; and in the basement was a row of shops, 
which extended nearly to Center Street. As far as Clapp Avenue, 
the north side of West Street, with its low, unsightly, wooden 
buildings, was called "The Bowery" by the local humorists of 
1876. The south side, east of the swamp and open meadow 
traversed by Center Street, was bordered mostly by dwelling 
houses. 

On the corner of North and West Streets, the four stories of 
the Berkshire Life Insurance Company's building, with its 
mansard roof, overtopped every structure in town, except the 
Academy of Music. This was the town's most important edifice 
forty years ago, because it harbored, in addition to the life in- 
surance offices, a singularly large share of local activities — all 
the banks, the post and telegraph offices, the Masonic organiza- 
tions, and the offices of the town government. A few years 
later this building contained also the telephone exchange, the 



PITTSFIELD IN 1876 S 

express offices, and the offices of the gas company and of the 
water commissioners; and its sudden destruction would have 
paralyzed Pittsfield almost completely. 

Where the Hotel Wendell now stands, on the corner of South 
and West Streets, there was in 1876 a brick structure with an 
angular roof, sloping north and south, which had been known 
as the United States Hotel and as the European House. The 
functions of a hotel therein had been abandoned, and the three 
stories were devoted to miscellaneous tenants. Immediately to 
the s#uth, on what was then still called Exchange Row, a res- 
taurant and a few stores faced Park Square. 

The building on the corner of Bank Row and South Street 
had then a sloping roof, and bore on its west side an inscription 
concerning which Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes declared that 
"when I drive up West Street, and see the Backus sign, I feel 
for the first time that Pittsfield is still Pittsfield". The court 
house had been completed in 1871, and the Athenaeum was 
dedicated in 1876. Shaded by the trees on the north side of 
Park Square, on land now occupied by the head of Allen Street, 
was St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, of gray stone, with a tower 
eighty feet high. The lower floor of the closely adjacent town 
hall was rented for lawyers' offices. A lane east of the church 
connected Park Square with the premises of a grammar school 
building facing south, the two engine houses, and the wooden 
lockup. West of the First Congregational Church, on the 
North Street corner, was West's block, a brick building of three 
stories. 

West's block had been, since its erection in 1850, a center 
of the town's public and social life. The "general store" on the 
corner had been practically the executive office of the town gov- 
ernment, owing to the conspicuous service of one of its pro- 
prietors, John C. West, as selectman; while the hall on the third 
floor had served the village for public meetings and dinners, 
balls and concerts, lectures and theatrical entertainments, and 
as the armory of the local militia company. In 1876, wooden 
parapets surrounding the flat roof of West's block proclaimed, 
in gaudily painted letters, that beneath them were the head- 
quarters of the Colby Guard. 



4 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

Business on North Street had extended barely beyond the 
railroad bridge, and between Fenn Street and the bridge dwelling 
houses still remained, although some were partly converted to 
commercial purposes.* No business blocks had been built on 
the side streets running east and west from North Street, except 
on Depot and Fenn Streets. The latter was ornamented by a 
little park, upon which faced the Methodist Church. Opposite 
the Baptist Church, on North Street, a wooden building of two 
low stories disfigured the otherwise well-equipped center of trade. 
This building had been contrived by joining two double tene- 
ments, and its aggregate rental every three years was said to 
repay its entire purchase price. Upon the whole, however, the 
appearance of Pittsfield's main thoroughfare in 1876, with more 
than a dozen business blocks of brick and stone, was indicative of 
thrift and public spirit. 

On the east side of North Street, south of the railroad, the 
Academy of Music was a theater far above the average then of 
playhouses in New England, outside of Boston. Beyond the 
theater, where now is Eagle Square, was a dwelling house, which 
was used as a restaurant. There was no public way from Cot- 
tage Row to North Street. Whelden's block, on the north side 
of the bridge, had been built in 1875; and the proprietor was 
satirically accused of aiming at the trade of Lanesborough. 

*In 1876, some of the more prominent places of business on the west side 
of North Street, beginning at its southern extremity, were those of L. L. At- 
wood (drugs), E. Spiegel (dry goods), Laforest Logan (tobacco), L A. Stevens 
(groceries), William H. Cooley (groceries), Gerst and Smith (harness), Peir- 
son and Son (hardware). Rice and Mills (furniture), C. C. Childs (jewelry), 
W. H. Sloan (hats and furs), John Feeley (plumbing and stoves), Burbank and 
Enright (shoes). Manning and Son (drugs), Thomas Behan (harness), Davis 
and Taylor (men's clothing), A. S. Waite (drugs), Casey and Bacon (groceries), 
and James M. Burns (furniture). 

A corresponding list of retail establishments on the east side of North 
Street would include John C. West and Brother (general store), Brewster and 
Rice (drugs). Prince and Walker (carpets), S. E. Nichols (books), Kennedy 
and Maclnnes (dry goods), Moses England (dry goods), O. Root and Sons 
(shoes), Morey and Harrison (groceries), Pingree and Brother (dry goods). 
Martin and Ritchie (dry goods), J. R. Newman and Son (men's clothing), 
H. T. Morgan and Company (men's clothing), A. D. Gale (harness), and S. T. 
Whipple (furniture). 



PITTSFIELD IN 1876 5 

The American House stood, as its successor stands now, on 
the corner of North Street and Columbus Avenue, then called 
Railroad Street. The hotel was in those days a structure of 
wood, with three piazzas and a broad, uncovered platform on the 
level of the sidewalk. Here our visitor might smoke his cigar 
al fresco, admire the gyrations of the rubber ball in the hotel 
fountain, and watch the idlers sitting on the railings of the 
North Street bridge, which was then unprovided with a fence of 
boards. If he turned his eyes across the street, he saw a lumber- 
yard and a manufactory of melodeons. He was nearly at the 
limit of the region of stores. There were no business blocks 
north of Summer Street. 

Our visitor of 1876 would have found that the more preten- 
tious residences, with one or two exceptions, lay south and east 
of the Park, and within a short radius of it. The wave of indus- 
trial prosperity in New England, which followed the Civil War, 
had made several Pittsfield men rich, but they had built, during 
this period, very few new houses for their own occupancy. It 
seems rather to have been the custom to remodel, to add a wing 
or a story, a cupola or a mansard roof. The result was often 
not architecturally happy, but nevertheless the town in 1876 
contained an unusual number of handsome residences, which, 
set off by sweeping lawns and regal trees, seldom failed to impress 
the observer with a sense of quiet and dignified luxury. 

Excepting a part of South Street, fences were still the univer- 
sal fashion; and it was a fashion not so common to adorn one's 
front yard with a fountain, or with a more or less decorative piece 
of metal statuary. The flower beds, which at the beginning of 
the century were customarily maintained between house and 
street, had unfortunately retreated to the vicinity of the back 
yard; but floriculture was no less a favorite avocation; and in 

On the north side of West Street, in 1876, H. P. Lucas dealt in farmers* 
supplies, John W. Power in "mill findings", Robbins, Gamwell and Company 
in steam heating appliances, Tuttle and Branch in stoves, and John F. Heming 
in fiour and grain. 

The business places on South Street and Bank Row, facing the Park, were 
Cloyes' millinery store, Cogswell's restaurant, E. G. Judd's hat store, Lowden's 
fish market, Fenn and Carter's carpet store, the plumbers' shop of W. G. 
Backus and Sons, the "notion store" of J. Haight and Co., the Berkshire Valley 
Paper Company's establishment, and I. C. Weller's flour and grain store. 



6 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

the floral months allowed by the Berkshire climate, the many 
gardens in Pittsfield, large and small, were a glory and a delight. 
Ornamental shrubbery was more in vogue than it is now, and 
many dooryards and house-fences were nearly hidden by it. 

Several noticeable dwellings have since disappeared. On 
East Street, between St, Stephen's Church and First Street, was 
the large and costly mansion of blue limestone which had been 
completed in 1858 by Thomas Allen. Surrounded later by a 
wall of dressed stone, with heavy bronze gates, this was for 
many years the most conspicuous residence in the central village. 
Mr. Allen, whose home was in St. Louis, occupied his Pittsfield 
house during the summers until he died in 1882; and after the 
death of his widow, in 1897, the house was untenanted. In 1913 
it was razed, and the spacious grounds, part of the "home-lot" 
of Parson Allen of the Revolution, were divided by Federal 
Street, and an extension of Wendell Avenue. 

Robert Pomeroy's house, long and affectionately known as 
"The Homestead", stood on the south side of East Street, op- 
posite the head of First Street. In 1876, the land now occupied 
by the dwellings on both sides of Bartlett Avenue was Mr. Pom- 
eroy's orchard and pasture. He lived until 1884 in "The 
Homestead" which was demolished in 1889, and was replaced by 
the house now standing on the same site, built by Mr. Pomeroy's 
son-in-law, Henry W. Bishop. "The Homestead" had been a 
tavern in Revolutionary days; and later, as the home of Lemuel 
Pomeroy and of his son, it was famous for a baronial hospitality, 
of which the reputation was by no means confined to Pittsfield, 
or even to the United States. 

On the north side of East Street, opposite the head of Apple- 
ton Avenue, a quaint, gambrel-roofed cottage stood on the site 
of the residence erected by W. Russell Allen. Built prior to 
1790 by Col. Simon Larned, whose farm extended to the line 
of the railroad, this house, with its orchard, barns, and out- 
buildings, remained unaltered for nearly a century, a picturesque 
memorial of the early days of the town. 

Farther afield, beyond the Elm Street bridge, the family of 
William Pollock maintained on a lavish scale the noble estate 
called "Greytower", which included nearly the entire square 



PITTSFIELD IN 1876 7 

now bounded by Elm Street, Holmes Road, Dawes Avenue, and 
High Street. The gate-lodge stood where is now the Baptist 
chapel on Elm Street; and about two hundred yards to the 
south of it was the stone mansion, surrounded by stately elms, 
luxuriant gardens, and English-looking lawns. The house was 
dismantled in 1913, and the estate was divided into building lots. 

If we return to Park Square and glance at South Street, we 
shall find that the changes since 1876 are mainly on the east side. 
The present site of the Museum was then occupied by two dwell- 
ing houses. The one nearer the Park had been built before 1800, 
perhaps by Stalham Williams, and was rented by a variety of 
tenants; the other, a modest but graceful example of the pilaster 
period of New England architecture, had been the home of Calvin 
Martin, until his death in 1867. It may be seen today on Broad 
Street. An odd little wooden building, used by Mr. Martin as a 
law-office, stood in front of his residence, close to the sidewalk. 

Next to the Martin place on the south was a brick house of 
three stories, which had been erected in 1826 by the trustees of 
the Pittsfield Female Academy. Until about 1870, it continued 
to serve the purposes of a girls' school; and in 1876 it had com- 
menced its long and popular career as Mrs. Viner's boarding 
house. It was demolished in 1888, when the Berkshire Home for 
Aged Women was built on the same site. 

A pleasant cottage occupied the plot of land now covered 
by the Colonial Theater; and across the street the parsonage of 
the First Church stood where is now the Masonic Temple. At 
the south corner of South and Broad Streets, an old and capa- 
cious tavern building, removed many years before from Park 
Square, did duty as a place of entertainment for summer visitors, 
under the auspices of Mrs. Backus. Facing north, opposite the 
west end of Colt Road, stood the former medical college, a brick 
structure owned by the town and used as a schoolhouse, which 
was burned to the ground in 1876, when the seventy pupils of 
the high school became for a time academically homeless. Be- 
yond the fringe of houses on the south side of Broad Street was 
open pasture land. 

Nearby, occupying the entire square bounded by Broad and 
Taconic Streets, and Wendell and Pomeroy Avenues, was "Elm- 



8 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

wood", the home of Edward Learned, then the finest residential 
estate in Pittsfield, with the exception, perhaps, of "Grey- 
tower". The house still survives, but the beautiful grounds 
have been divided. Mr. Learned's neighbor, John L. Colby, 
lived in a low, Italian-looking villa, on the southeast corner of 
East Housatonic Street and Pomeroy Avenue, with broad, shaded 
lawns, and a wired enclosure wherein deer were kept for the 
admiration of the juvenile populace. 

In 1876, the river bridge at Appleton Avenue had not been 
built, and East Housatonic Street and Appleton Avenue may 
be said to have marked the limit on the southeast of the residen- 
tial district of the central village. On the northeast, a like 
limit was established by Burbank and Third Streets, for imme- 
diately north of Tyler Street was open country, and in that vi- 
cinity there were only a few dwelling houses east of the county 
jail. Rural meadows bordered Silver Lake to the north and 
northeast. The central village on the northwest was bounded 
in 1876 by Kent Avenue, Alder Street, and Onota Street; and 
on the southwest by the west branch of the Housatonic River 
and Henry Avenue. 

Within this area, the newer dwellings exhibited the hooded 
windows, the roofs of many gables, and the ornamental wood- 
work of a fashion of architecture, which, as was remarked by a 
congratulatory writer in the Pittsfield Sun, was beginning to 
supersede "the square and box-like style of the houses of our 
forefathers". 

No street in the town was artificially surfaced, and cross- 
walks were not provided, except on North and West Streets, and 
on Park Square. When the almanac denied a moon, the streets 
were lighted by gas lamps, of which there were about one hun- 
dred. In the business district the sidewalks, thickly fringed by 
hitching-posts, were of irregular stone flagging, diversified by 
intervals of gravel. Upon the residential streets, the sidewalks 
were of gravel; and they were often narrow and uneven, and in 
wet weather very muddy. 

The era of the modern "summer place" had hardly dawned 
in Berkshire, forty years ago. Col. Richard Lathers had built a 
summer residence, called "Abby Lodge", on the crest of the 



PITTSFIELD IN 1876 9 

hill south of the railroad on Holmes Road; and west of the vil- 
lage, on the southern shore of Onota Lake, stood the picturesque 
summer homes of Pickering Clark and W. C. Allen. All of these 
have disappeared. Still standing, near the present intersection 
of Perrine Avenue and Roland Street, is the villa built by Judge 
Benjamin R. Curtis, which in 1876 was the solitary center of a 
broad and romantic estate, covered partly by forest trees. The 
Davol farm, on the hill northwest of Springside, was another 
conspicuous outlying country place, and a little to the south of it 
the Springside boarding house could safely guarantee rural se- 
clusion to its guests. The shores of Pontoosuc Lake had been 
adorned neither by cottage nor by bungalow, although Jerry 
Swan, and two or three fellow mariners, kept boathouses there. 

In the northern and northwestern parts of the town, the 
four factory villages were then more distinctly separated than 
they are now; but their general appearance has not otherwise 
radically been altered, except by the erection of schoolhouses 
and of the St. Charles and the Pilgrim Memorial Churches. 
Toward the southwest, however, a loss of industrial activity is 
to be noted. The two Barkervilles were, in 1876, prosperous 
factory communities; the Shaker village flourished comfortably; 
and, nearer at hand on the west branch of the Housatonic, the 
busy looms of L. Pomeroy's Sons gave employment to about 
three hundred people. Lacking such ready intercommunication 
as is afforded at present by the trolley and the telephone, each 
of these manufacturing villages, as well as Coltsville on the east, 
developed a more or less individual and somewhat jealous com- 
munity spirit of its own. 

The business depression and political unrest, which began to 
trouble the country in 1873, had not seriously distressed Pitts- 
field's manufacturing interests; but nevertheless the prevalent 
spirit of the town as to its future was not a spirit of optimism. 
Both domestic life and the conduct of public affairs were affected 
by a lack of confidence. It was argued that neither the popula- 
tion nor the valuation of the town ever could greatly increase; 
that farm land in the township was exhausted, and that the 
water power for textile manufacturing, the town's chief indus- 
trial reliance, was already completely utilized. Of course, it was 



10 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

possible to equip new factories with steam power, and such a 
venture, indeed, had been tried at Morningside, but not with 
signal success. 

Even more disturbing was the question of the possible effect 
of new railroads upon the town. A main trunk line, connecting 
Boston with the West, had been opened through the Hoosac 
tunnel and North Adams so recently that its effect upon the 
trade, manufactories, and growth of Pittsfield was still problemat- 
ical. Another main line to pass east and west through the 
county at Lee, having been within a few years actively projected, 
had received the temporary quietus of a governor's veto; but 
the plan was at any time susceptible of revival, and its execution 
might endanger the continuance of Pittsfield's material welfare. 

Thus confronted by the possibility that their town might 
soon cease to grow in wealth and population, the people of 
Pittsfield seem to have evinced a disposition to make the best of 
the present, rather than to busy themselves with plans for the 
future. From 1873 until 1880, the enterprise of the community 
was almost at a standstill; and there was a general subsidence, or 
at least suspension, of that pushing spirit, public and private, 
which had made Pittsfield in 1872 resemble "one of the fast- 
growing cities of the West", according to the newspaper observer 
already quoted. 

The social life of the village, however, was none the less 
wholesome and enjoyable. Pittsfield was still a Yankee town 
wherein friendships were made readily and widely. Few people 
were so fastidious socially as to irritate themselves or their 
neighbors; a newcomer was impressed by the habit of even the 
leading men of calling one another by their youthful nicknames; 
and such democratic institutions as the town meeting and the 
large volunteer fire companies were vigorous foes to the develop- 
ment of distinctions of caste and class. 

The typical man of standing in the Pittsfield of 1876 had 
seen the village develop from a semi-agricultural to a manufac- 
turing town; he had acquired his influence, as he had his proper- 
ty, patiently and carefully at home; and he preserved a whole- 
some regard for the village way of living, which, while it did not 
preclude substantial comfort, was opposed to fashionable dis- 



PITTSFIELD IN 1876 11 

play. He would drive the best of horses, for instance; but 
the jingle of an ornamental harness offended his ears. He 
would indulge himself with the possession of a farm, which he 
did not need; but it was neither an experiment nor a plaything, 
and it was conducted on the same scale as the farm on which he 
had spent his boyhood. His wife would invite her guests to a 
"kettle-drum" or a "small-and-early" in her tasteful drawing- 
room, or to a five-o'clock dinner at her lavishly supplied table; 
but, with equal contentment, she would entertain the same 
guests by a "candy-pull" or an "oyster-roast" in her hospitable 
kitchen. 

The intellectual and esthetic interests of the community had 
been freshly stimulated, at the period which we are considering. 
The enlargement of the public library and the completion of the 
building for the Athenaeum, the establishment of an excellent 
seminary of music, the erection of a theater, and the dawn of an 
improvement in the system of public schools had recently em- 
phasized anew, each of them in its own way, the value of art and 
education. 

The beneficent influence of strongly supported churches and 
religious societies was exerted potently, faithfully, and amicably. 
There were nine church edifices in the town. Of these, six re- 
main; — the First Congregational, St. Joseph's, the South Con- 
gregational, the First Baptist, the Methodist Episcopal, and the 
Second Congregational. Three have disappeared, and have 
been replaced on nearly the same sites, by the present German 
Lutheran, St. Stephen's, and Notre Dame Churches, the prede- 
cessor of the latter having been called originally St. Jean le 
Baptiste. 

Pittsfield at this time was making its first trial of a permanent 
charity built on lines broadly representative of different religious 
beliefs. The chief local interest of many Pittsfield women was 
the new House of Mercy hospital, then established on Francis 
Avenue. During 1875, the first year of its existence, the House 
of Mercy cared for twenty-two patients. The usefulness of the 
hospital was perhaps still to be proved, and abundantly were the 
years to prove it; but already the institution was powerfully ef- 



12 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

fective in bringing together the members of all the churches, as 
a unit, in a noble field of public service. 

Social life was far less elaborately organized than it is now, 
and social amusements were more spontaneous. Clubs were 
informal and usually short-lived, although the Berkshire Reading 
Room Association, which moved into rooms in the Berkshire 
Life Insurance Company's building in 1871, had an enjoyable 
existence from 1863 to 1903. The Pleasure Park Association, 
precursor of a modern country club, had become moribund before 
1876, and had leased its race track, stables, and clubhouse on 
Elm Street, about a mile and a half from the village center. 
Rooms in the United States Hotel building were occupied by the 
Park Club of those days, a small and jovial organization, long 
since extinct. Fraternal orders, however, flourished healthfully; 
and the quarters of the volunteer fire companies were pleasant 
and well-ordered clubrooms. 

Public balls and masquerades were much in vogue, with 
music by George Becker's orchestra, or with the assistance of 
Doring's band of Albany. Especially notable was the annual 
ball of the George Y. Learned Engine Company; in 1876, it was 
attended in the Academy of Music, where a dancing-floor was 
built over the theater-seats, while in a floral bower, supplied by 
Otto Kaiser, a perfumed fountain played fragrantly. 

In sleighing-time, hardly a week passed without an excur- 
sion of a large party to Lanesborough or Cheshire, Lenox or Lee, 
for a supper and a dance at the village hotel. It was the custom, 
too, that a genial descent should be made, sometimes unexpected- 
ly, upon a hospitable farmhouse in the "North Woods" or the 
"East Part", and that the visit should be as unexpectedly re- 
turned, and as hospitably received. Coasting parties, not al- 
ways youthfully constituted by any means, flocked to Church 
Street, and Jubilee Hill; while skaters patronized Silver Lake 
and the West Street meadow, near Center Street. 

Among the popular entertainments, lectures were conspicu- 
ous, although the cult of the New England lyceum was already 
waning. Amateur theatrical performances seem to have been 
frequent, especially by the young people of the Catholic benevo- 
lent societies. Lovers of classical music were gratified by nu- 



PITTSFIELD IN 1876 13 

merous concerts, of which the exceptional merit is still remem- 
bered, under the supervision often of Benjamin C. Blodgett or 
James I. Lalor; and at the theater might be seen several of the 
best actors of the period. 

Nor should public amusements of less importance be forgotten 
— the itinerant Punch-and-Judy shows at the Park, for example, 
occasionally accompanied by a melancholy bear; the street 
auctions on West's corner; the traveling circuses, which en- 
camped on the "town lot", or on the small pasture at the north- 
east corner of Wendell Avenue and East Housatonic Street; 
the races and baseball games at the Pleasure Park; the Swiss 
Bell-ringers and the Bohemian Glass-blowers at West's or Bur- 
bank's Hall; and the exhibitions, two or three years later, of 
strange, amusing, and useless toys called the phonograph and the 
telephone. 

Nothing of this sort, however, entertained and excited the 
town to a greater degree than did the annual fair of the Berkshire 
Agricultural Society. The grounds and buildings of the society 
covered thirty acres of a hill on the west side of Wahconah 
Street, opposite the Bel Air factory. The fair, with all the 
spirited accessories of a country cattle show, lasted for three 
days, and attracted most of the population of the central part of 
Berkshire. A journey to the fair grounds was not always neces- 
sary to enjoy the humors of cattle show week. Rural horse- 
trading was volubly conducted on School Street, and the pic- 
turesque steeds of this Tattersall's exhibited their preposterous 
paces by circling the Park. 

During the summer, popular picnic grounds were the Curti.s 
woods at Morningside, and Pomeroy's grove, nearly opposite 
the present Pomeroy School on West Housatonic Street. Both 
branches of the Housatonic afforded clean swimming-holes as 
well as good boating. Oarsmen frequented Silver Lake; and 
the waters of Onota were plowed by a steam launch as early as 
1869. 

The glorious beauty of Berkshire scenery was deeply and 
strongly appreciated by the men and women of Pittsfield long 
before it achieved a fame more widely spread; and a summer 
day's excursion among the hills was always, as always it will be* 



14 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

a favorite pastime. Little journeys of pleasure over the country- 
roads might have been of necessity made in a more leisurely 
fashion than they are at present, but they were not the less de- 
lightful. An improved road over Potter Mountain had been 
recently opened ; and an observatory was projected at its highest 
point. Much was made of every phase of outdoor life. Camping 
parties were often enjoyed. In 1877, many members of the West 
and Campbell families in Pittsfield pitched tents for a week beside 
Ashley Lake, and held a Sunday praise-service, in which they were 
joined by one hundred people from the town of Washington. 

In the Pittsfield directory of 1876, one citizen is listed by 
profession as a hunter. The classification was sentimental 
rather than accurate. Although there were more birds in the 
woods then than now, and a good many more fish in the streams 
and lakes, hunting and fishing could hardly have supplied the 
sole means of livelihood the year around. Nevertheless, not a 
few men partly supported themselves by hunting, under the 
liberal game laws then in force; and the North Street merchants 
considered it worth while to advertise that they would pay cash 
for "raw skins". Trout brooks within easy distance of the vil- 
lage had not been exhausted. Pontoosuc Lake still justified Dr. 
Todd's appellation of "the poor man's pork barrel", and numer- 
ous humble housewives counted on a steady supply of pickerel 
and bullheads. The Sun complacently recorded in 1876 that 
the river at Taylor's bridge on South Street having been "blown 
up with giant powder, several barrels of suckers" were thereupon 
captured by the bold artillerists. 

It does not appear that the legal authorities were moved by 
this explosive fishery. The regular police force of those days 
consisted of seven men. Pittsfield was a law-abiding communi- 
ty, although there was a good deal of complaint of nocturnal 
disorder in the streets. This was due to a boisterous rather than 
to a vicious element, but the policemen needed not to suffer from 
tedium. Jail deliveries at the flimsy wooden lockup on School 
Street attracted merely casual notice from the local press. One 
inmate climbed "through the roof" and was seen no more; an- 
other, having been liberated by a judicious friend, who "took 
the key from the peg beside the door and unlocked it", posted 



PITTSFIELD IN 1876 15 

himself across the street from the despicable dungeon, and fre- 
quently assaulted the night with triumphant outcries. On 
more serious occasions, when the instrumentalities of the police 
proved inadequate, the citizens were ready to take the law into 
their own hands. Thus fifty indignant neighbors wrecked an of- 
ensive hostelry on Beaver Street, and threw the furniture, crock- 
ery, and stoves into Silver Lake, and there the matter ended. 

The dual form of local government, including that of the 
town and that of the fire district, was beginning to show de- 
fects, which will hereafter be discussed; but the visitor to Pitts- 
field would have found a high grade of citizenship engaged in the 
administration of public affairs. If he went to a town meeting, 
he would be impressed by its orderly attention to business, by 
its intelligent breadth of view, and by the shrewdness and often 
the eloquence of its debates; six years later, in 1882, the members 
of the Congressional delegation to the funeral in Pittsfield of 
Thomas Allen visited a town meeting, which happened to be in 
session, and emphatically praised its parliamentary ability. 

Of the population, one resident in three was a native of the 
town, while one in four had been born in a foreign country. 
Every man elected to the office of selectman between 1855 and 
1876 was of Berkshire birth. Of the 3,029 foreign-born inhabi- 
tants, according to the census of 1875, 1,658 were born in Ireland, 
464 in Germany, 449 in Canada, 210 in England, twenty-three 
in Russia, and one in Italy. 562 men were listed as factory 
operatives, and 491 as farmers and farm laborers. There were 
2,052 dwelling houses in the town. 

The starting point of our narrative, then, is a prosperous 
Massachusetts manufacturing town which had reached, ac- 
cording to its own reasonable opinion, the limit of its substantial 
growth, and which had not quite outlived its rural characteristics 
and conservative village ways; a community guided by forceful 
and intelligent men and women, who had grown up with it; a 
town wherein the influence of religion, art, and education was 
strong, active, and well-nurtured, and wherein social intercourse 
was pleasurable and unrestrained. Its past had been honorable 
and inspiring. The future was to determine in what manner 
it would meet confusing problems of rapid material development, 
and of radical changes in the texture of its social fabric. 



CHAPTER II 
FIFTEEN YEARS OF TOWN LIFE, 1876-1891 

AT midnight of the last day of December, 1875, many of 
the windows in the vicinity of Park Square were illumi- 
nated, a bonfire was kindled, the church bells were rung, 
and the faithful little fieldpiece, long known to local fame as the 
George Y. Learned Battery, roared out a national salute in 
honor of the advent of the centennial year of the nation's inde- 
pendence. Pittsfield was not moved to celebrate it otherwise, 
except by planting in the Park a centennial tree, for which an 
economical town meeting had appropriated $20. The centenary 
of George Washington's first inauguration was more appropriate- 
ly marked by the people of the town, when, on Monday, April 
thirtieth, 1889, there were services at St. Joseph's and at 
Notre Dame, a union service at the First Church, and a crowded 
meeting at the Academy of Music, where John D. Long of 
Hingham was the distinguished orator of the day. The towns- 
people had the traditional New England fondness for good public 
speaking, and the habit of assembling to honor important occa- 
sions or the memories of important men. When President Gar- 
field died, in 1881, they gathered twice, once at the Baptist 
Church, where Thomas A. Oman presided and addresses were 
made by Joseph Tucker, Jarvis N. Dunham, and Henry W. 
Taft; and again on the next day, at the Academy of Music, with 
Rev. J. L. Jenkins as chairman, and Rev. R. S. J. Burke, William 
B. Rice, and Henry L. Dawes as the speakers. After General 
Grant's death, in 1885, a memorial meeting of especial impres- 
siveness was held in the Methodist Church; Rev. Samuel Har- 
rison offered the prayer, and speeches were made by Morris 
Schaff, Joseph Tucker, Henry L. Dawes, and James M. Barker. 
A dignified and appreciative spirit, also, was characteristic 
of the dedications, between 1876 and 1891, of four institutions of 



FIFTEEN YEARS OF TOWN LIFE, 187G-1891 17 

lasting value to Pittsfield. The dedicatory exercises in 1876 of 
the Berkshire Athenaeum included a prayer by Rev. Mark Hop- 
kins, the venerable and beloved president of Williams College, 
and addresses by Thomas Allen, William R. Plunkett, Julius 
Rockwell, and others. The corner stone of the House of Mercy 
building was laid in 1877 by Mrs. Curtis T. Fenn; and among 
the speakers were James D. Colt, and Rev. Jonathan L. Jenkins. 
The Berkshire County Home for Aged Women was dedicated in 
1889, when addresses were made by Dr. J. F. A. Adams, Rev. 
W. W. Newton, Jarvis N. Dunham, and Rev. J. L. Jenkins. In 
the same year Richard T. Auchmuty of Lenox presided at the 
dedicatory exercises of the Henry W. Bishop 3rd Memorial Train- 
ing School for Nurses; and, after the presentation speech by 
Henry W. Bishop, Joseph H. Choate of New York delivered the 
principal address. 

The community of Pittsfield had never become the recipient 
and custodian of any considerable amount of private bounty 
until the establishment of these several institutions. They stim- 
ulated a local pride, both sober and healthful. Apart from the 
direct good which they conferred upon the public was the in- 
direct benefit which they effected in uniting the people of the 
town by a common possession, and by the responsibility of con- 
ducting permanent charitable agencies organized on broad and 
non-sectarian lines. 

The celebration of the Fourth of July in 1881 was typical of 
the period. A burlesque street procession in the morning, called 
"The Antiques and Horribles", included elaborate travesties of 
the selectmen, the fire companies, the police force, and of many 
other local characters and organizations. At noon, the parade 
of the day was marshaled by Col. H. H. Richardson, and the 
new Berkshire Germania Band made its debut. Athletic sports 
were witnessed on Park Square, where a sack race, the climbing 
of a slippery pole, the pursuit of a greased pig, a tug-of-war, and 
a hose race by the firemen enlivened a throng estimated to num- 
ber ten thousand persons; and many in the town marveled at 
their earliest view of a bicycle race, when four daring youths rode 
on incredibly balanced, high wheels down South to Broad Street 
and back to the Park by way of Wendell Avenue. An exhibition 



18 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

of fireworks on the First Street "town lot" completed the diver- 
sions. 

In 1887 the Sarsfield Association celebrated the first Labor 
Day by a monster picnic at Pontoosuc Lake. The chief attrac- 
tion was a race between two imported professional oarsmen, who 
w^ere paraded through the streets in their rowing shells; but the 
depleted waters of Pontoosuc at that season did not lend them- 
selves kindly to the event. Another early Labor Day celebra- 
tion of note in Pittsfield was that of the Father Mathew societies 
of the five western counties of the state, in 1890. 

Pittsfield was rightfully and duly impressed with the signifi- 
cance, in 1887, of celebrations to mark the twenty -fifth anniver- 
saries of the departure for the front of the Forty-ninth and 
Thirty-seventh Massachusetts regiments, which served in the 
Civil War. The citizens contributed money and effort to make 
both of these occasions notable. The veterans of the Forty- 
ninth assembled on September. first, 1887, and spent the day on 
their old camp-ground at the Pleasure Park. The reunion of the 
Thirty-seventh was held a week later. Hezekiah S. Russell was 
chairman of the citizens' committee of arrangements, and the 
regiment listened to an address of welcome at the Park from 
Rev. J. L. Jenkins, and dined at the Coliseum on North Street, 
where the town's influential men gathered to honor their guests. 

The superbly named Coliseum was an ignoble wooden struct- 
ure of one story, which had been originally built for a roller 
skating rink in 1883; it stood on the southern part of the grounds 
now occupied by St. Joseph's Convent. For several years the 
Coliseum was the most commodious public hall in Pittsfield, and 
was the scene of the annual town meeting, and the only polling- 
place for elections. At the national election of 1888, the largest 
vote cast at a single poll in the United States was recorded there. 
The building was purchased in 1887 by Rev. Edward H. Purcell 
of St. Joseph's, and demolished preparatory to the establishment 
of the convent in 1895. 

About the year 1880, the return of the town's material pros- 
perity was made evident by many new buildings, both for busi- 
ness and residential purposes. North Street was greatly im- 
proved by the erection of Central Block in 1881, on the site of 



FIFTEEN YEARS OF TOWN LIFE, 1876-1891 19 

the nest of decrepit tenements which had been destroyed as if 
providentially by fire in April of that year. In November, the 
Eagle proclaimed with patriotic and fervent pride that "the 
number of new houses that may be counted in Pittsfield's growth 
from last November to the present is nearly fifty", and that 
"Pittsfield's industries were never more fully employed, and 
every machine is busy to its best capacity". In 1883, Bartlett 
Avenue and Taconic Street were made available for building lots; 
new business blocks were erected at the corner of North and 
Summer Streets, and at Fenn and Pearl; and for the Terry 
Clock Company a brick shop was built on South Church Street, 
which was said to be the most completely equipped factory of its 
kind in the country. The England block on the east side of 
North Street was constructed in 1884, as well as the second 
Burbank building, north of the American House; and in 1887 
an annex on the west was added to that hotel. The only dwell- 
ing house remaining on North Street between the Park and the 
railroad bridge disappeared when the "Milton Whitney house" 
was razed. It had been known latterly as the Sherman and 
as the Commercial Hotel, and its removal made way in 1888 for 
the Wollison block, south of the Academy of Music. The sec- 
ond Burns block, and the Brackin building on North Street, be- 
tween Union and Summer Streets, were erected in 1890. 

In 1889, the expense of building in the town was half a million 
dollars, a sum of unprecedented magnitude. It included the 
cost of two new churches. Unity and St. Stephen's; two new 
charitable institutions, the Bishop Memorial, and the Home for 
Aged Women; and two new factories, the shop of the Cheshire 
Shoe Company, and that of W. E. Tillotson, near Silver Lake. 
During the year, more than $300,000 had been spent for dwelling 
houses, and the population had increased by nearly one thousand. 

The necessity of building the main village almost entirely 
anew was at one time barely escaped. The narrow path of the 
phenomenal hurricane which tore through the valley from west 
to east in 1879 was less than a mile distant from the thickly set- 
tled parts of Pittsfield. No storm quite like it has ever been ex- 
perienced by the town or the city. The day, July sixteenth, 
1879, was excessively hot. About two o'clock in the afternoon. 



20 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

the light wind veered rapidly from the south to the northwest, 
and above the noisy downpour of the tropical rain was heard an 
ominous sound rare in New England — the peculiar and charac- 
teristic roar of the tornado. The funnel-shaped whirlwind ap- 
parently began its work of destruction in Pittsfield near the 
corner of West and Churchill Streets, whence it swept east to the 
flinty buttresses of Washington Mountain. The path of its full 
strength was sixty rods wide, passing south of the central village 
at the crossing of the Housatonic river by South Street. Several 
bridges, many buildings, and hundreds of beautiful trees were 
destroyed. The loss of life was miraculously small; only two 
persons were killed, one at Pomeroy's factory, and the other on 
South Street, near the river bridge. 

No serious damage to any part of the town was ever threaten- 
ed by flood, although in December of 1878 an exceptional freshet, 
which thoroughly alarmed the village of Dalton, submerged 
lower Fenn Street in Pittsfield, and caused such an overflow of 
Silver Lake and the neighboring river that travel in that vicinity 
was suspended for several days. 

On April twenty-third, 1881, the business center of the town 
was menaced by destruction by fire, when the Weller buildings 
on North Street, opposite the Baptist Church, were burned. 
The flames were discovered at two o'clock in the afternoon; and, 
although a strong wind was blowing, the fire department suc- 
ceeded in confining them to the wooden block. In the evening, 
the owner of the property arrived from his home in a neighboring 
state, announced that he would repair rather than rebuild, and 
went to bed. Early the next morning, however, the firemen, 
who were watching the smoking ruins, discovered another fire 
therein, and before they extinguished it, the unsightly structure 
had been damaged beyond the possibility of restoration. The 
owner promptly sold out, and the negligent firemen of the early 
morning received guardedly the covert thanks of the community. 

Two factory fires at about this time excited the town. The 
"lower stone mill" at Barkerville was burned in 1879; the loss 
was $80,000, and the disaster dealt a blow to the manufacturing 
interests in that section from which they never fully recovered. 
The fierce fire which consumed in half-an-hour the main buildings 



FIFTEEN YEARS OF TOWN LIFE, 1876-1891 21 

of the Pomeroy factories, near West Housatonic Street, occurred 
in December of 1885. Part of the building had been occupied 
for the purposes of woolen manufacturing since 1814, and the 
destruction of its tower, whereon a huge gilt ram served as a 
vane, caused the loss of a familiar landmark. 

The old medical college at the foot of South Street was 
burned on April first, 1876; and, in consequence, the problem of 
providing accommodations for the high school was the immediate 
question which confronted the voters. For an adequate solution 
the period was unpropitious. The stress of hard times was in- 
sistent; and the growth and prosperity of the town seemed to be 
at a standstill. The two special town meetings, which were 
called in the spring of 1876 to determine the location of the new 
high school, were spirited and earnest. Economy dictated the 
choice of the medical college site on South Street, already owned 
by the town; and, in the debate, the contention between "north- 
enders" and "south-enders", often afterward to appear, was for 
the first time strongly evident. The discussion engaged the en- 
ergies of the town's best citizens; of Ensign H. Kellogg, for ex- 
ample, who wished to have the new school nearer the northern 
manufacturing villages; of Judge James D. Colt, who argued, 
with characteristic sentiment, the value of a beautiful view from 
classroom windows; of hard-headed S. W. Bowerman, who 
thought that the pupils should not be thereby distracted; of 
Edward Learned, whose trained surveyor's hand deftly drew a 
map on the wall of the town hall to illustrate his speech; of 
Oliver W. Robbins, who declared that he and his sisters, wi 
childhood days, walked two miles to school and thrived by the 
exercise; and of John V. Barker, who said he could prove, on the 
contrary, that the health of the juvenile Robbinses was not al- 
ways what it should have been. Eventually the South Street 
site was selected. 

Among the other locations suggested, that most persistently 
urged was the "town lot" on First Street, between the German 
Lutheran Church and the railroad. The ill-kept condition of 
this piece of town property was not creditable. After its disuse, 
about 1850, as a village burying ground, it had been so robbed of 
soil and gravel, and so denuded of grass and trees, that it was an 



22 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

ugly blot upon that part of the village. The voters who met in 
the April town meeting of 1883, stirred to action by a vigorous 
newspaper campaign that had been conducted by Miss Anna L. 
Dawes, appropriated $1500 to make the town lot a public park, 
and from this vote originated the present Common. 

When, in 1886, the first street railway in Pittsfield was to be 
laid, a route through First Street, instead of North Street, was 
advocated by a few citizens who protested vainly against the 
laying of tracks in the town's main thoroughfare. The railway, 
to run from the Union Station to Pontoosuc, had been projected 
by Boston investors in the fall of 1885. Of the capital stock of 
the company, one-fifth, or $10,000, was subscribed in Pittsfield; 
and the original directors were Thaddeus Clapp, who was presi- 
dent, T. L. Allen, T. D. Peck, A. A. Mills, H. R. Peirson, G. H. 
Towle of Boston, and F. W. Harwood of Natick. The selectmen 
granted the franchise in February, 1886; and work at once be- 
gan, so that the first cars, drawn by horses, were placed in op- 
eration on July third following, when the use of the road was 
gratuitously extended to a large party of guests for the initial 
run. Upon this occasion, the Sun waxed lyrical: 
"Roll on, thou gorgeous Car of Progress, roll! 

Paw, steed! Tinkle the signal bell! 

Here's luck to thee, and to the men 

Who pay the hills! We hope that every trip 

Will have loads like the first, but with 

More money in them." 
The introduction of the telephone did not attract so much 
local attention. This was in 1877, when in May, at the Academy 
of Music, a demonstration was attempted of the power of the 
newly devised instrument to transmit sounds from Westfield. 
The notes of a reed organ and of a cornet were faintly heard by 
a part of the Pittsfield audience; but transmission of the voice 
seemed a failure, and sapient scepticism made merry . About three 
hundred people had been attracted to the theater, a number in- 
sufiicient to pay the expenses of the exhibition. The first prac- 
tical use of the telephone in Pittsfield was in March, 1878, over 
a line between the Pontoosuc factory and the Pittsfield National 
Bank; and the first exchange was established in 1879. During 
the previous year, the Berkshire Life Insurance Company had 



FIFTEEN YEARS OF TOWN LIFE, 1876-1891 23 

installed, in its building, Pittsfield's first public elevator. The 
electric light was first exhibited in Pittsfield in 1881. In 1883, a 
few North Street merchants, headed by Alexander Kennedy, 
organized a small corporation for the purpose of supplying their 
stores with arc lamps. Ten lights of that sort were then in use; 
and in 1885 the street lighting committee of the fire district set 
up seven arc lamps for an experiment. 

During the brief period of six years, then, both the commercial 
and the domestic life of the village had been modernized and 
made more comfortable by the introduction of telephones, public 
elevators, electric lights, and street cars. To these should be 
added the first establishment of a daily newspaper in Pittsfield. 
Nathaniel C. Fowler, Jr., began the publication of the Evening 
Journal on September twenty-seventh, 1880. Its birth was one 
of travail; the presses, when printing the first two numbers, 
were moved entirely by hand power, because of a breakdown of 
the mechanical equipment. Mr. Fowler's determination, how- 
ever, overcame many obstacles, and his paper was able to take 
at once a vigorous part, on the Republican side, in the national 
election which resulted in the presidency of Garfield. 

The political complexion in national affairs of the town of 
Pittsfield in its latter days was consistently Democratic. Its 
vote in 1876 was forTilden 1,236, and for Hayes 953; in 1880, 
for Hancock 1,211, and for Garfield 1,103; in 1884, for Cleveland 
1,547, and for Blaine 1,099; and in 1888, for Cleveland 1,644, and 
for Harrison, 1,474. The balloting was accomplished at a single 
poll, and occasionally enlivened by somewhat boisterous episodes; 
but never to the point of turbulence or injustice. It was an era 
of noisy political campaigning, of strenuous oratory and frequent 
rallies, of torchlight processions and nocturnal parading by uni- 
formed "phalanxes," and "legions". During the presidential 
campaign of 1876, a local editor modestly reported that "one 
hundred torches filled the entire length of our spacious main 
boulevard with a sea of light". Residences and places of busi- 
ness along the line of march were illuminated elaborately upon 
such occasions. A procession in Pittsfield of Plarrison's sup- 
porters in 1888 included over four thousand torch bearers, re- 
cruited from the county at large. 



24 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

The town of Pittsfield by vote refused to license the sale of 
liquor only in 1886. Under the state regulations then existing, 
there were in 1876 fifty -four liquor licenses of various classes 
operative in the village; and this number did not decrease for 
several years. 

After 1876, the town's equipment of hotels was not materially 
altered, despite some public-spirited effort, until the enlargement 
of the American House, in 1887. On Summer Street, the inde- 
fatigable Abraham Burbank supervised the conduct of the Berk- 
shire House, to which direct access from North Street was 
closed in 1884 by the erection of one of his many business blocks; 
and he continued capably to direct in person the hotel, which 
bore his name, near the railroad station. The American House, 
owned by Cebra Quackenbush, was managed by G. H. Gale, and 
later by William St. Lawrence, who was succeeded in 1889 by 
the firm of A. W. Plumb and George W. Clark. During the 
summer vacations, the school buildings at Maplewood were used 
for hotel purposes by several landlords, including William St. 
Lawrence and Elisha Taft; in 1887, Arthur W. Plumb assumed 
the management, which he has long and successfully continued. 
In 1885, Elisha Taft leased the Robert Pomeroy residence on 
East Street, and conducted it as a hotel under the name of the 
Homestead Inn. 

Less pretentious houses of public entertainment were the 
Cottage and the Farmers' Hotels on West Street; and at the 
Fountain House on Depot Street, Rudolph Schmidt began, as 
early as 1875, a tenancy which continued for twenty years. 
There the visitor might find, as if transplanted from a German 
village, a temperate and old-fashioned hierhausy militantly gov- 
erned by a quaint autocrat, whose humor, kindliness, and sturdy 
good citizenship caused genial memories of him long to be cherish- 
ed. The town's first restaurant conducted on lines more metro- 
politan was the "Palais Royal", so-called, in the Academy of 
Music building. 

The quantity of professional dramatic art exhibited in the 
Academy was not large, but its quality was excellent. With the 
exception of Edwin Booth, the most eminent contemporary 
actors played there, until about 1888, not annually, but with a 



FIFTEEN YEARS OF TOWN LIFE, 1876-1891 25 

regularity forbidden later to small cities and towns by the 
theatrical conditions of the country. During this period Pitts- 
field saw, for example, William J. Florence, Mme. Janauschek, 
E. L. Davenport, Dion Boucicault, William Warren, Margaret 
Mather, Rose Coghlan, Thomas W. Keene, John T. Raymond, 
Louis James, John McCuUough, Marie Wainwright, Lotta, and 
Maggie Mitchell; Joseph Jefferson, who spent the day, under 
the escort of local fishermen, on a trout brook; Lawrence Barrett, 
who was a guest of Robert Pomeroy; and Mary Anderson, with 
whom some Pittsfield youngsters, helplessly demoralized by her 
fame and beauty, went coasting on the Church Street hill. 

Theodore Thomas, in 1885, brought his famous orchestra to 
Pittsfield, and gave a concert at the Coliseum, with Emma Juch 
as the vocal soloist. The town was by no means unaccustomed 
to good public performances of the best music. The music 
school conducted for three years on Wendell Avenue until 1881 
by Benjamin C. Blodgett was of exceptional merit and scope for 
a town of Pittsfield's size; and his artistic enthusiasm and ideals 
were able to affect the community beyond the circle of his pupils. 
The village owed to him its first hearing of an adequate per- 
formance of an oratorio, when, in 1879, he directed a production 
of "Elijah", in which members of the Harvard Symphony Or- 
chestra of Boston participated. Two years thereafter, Mr. 
Blodgett assumed the supervision of the musical department at 
Smith College. In 1889, Pittsfield citizens, among whom Edward 
S. Francis was prominent, organized the Berkshire Musical So- 
ciety, and promoted a series of concerts on a somewhat elaborate 
scale, and initiated at the Coliseum. The influence of James I. 
Lalor upon local appreciation of good music during this period 
was constantly uplifting; and under his leadership the musical 
services at St. Joseph's, where he was choir director, gave the 
highest enjoyment to the entire music-loving public as well as 
to his fellow churchmen. 

To the pastor of the First Church, Rev. J. L. Jenkins, was 
due the inception of a charitable organization which shared with 
the House of Mercy the distinction of marking a change in 
the method of Pittsfield's philanthropy. The Union for Home 
Work was formed in 1878. For the relief of the poor in that 



26 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

year, the community was paying about $7,000 through the town 
oflScials, and about $3,000 through the channels of private and 
parochial charities. A temperance revival had resulted in the 
opening of a coffee room; and its managers had supplemented it 
by organizing a sewing class and a modest employment office. 
For these purposes, association on a larger scale was effected at 
a public meeting. It was declared that the Union for Home 
Work should seek the following objects: "The relief of the poor, 
the reform of the bad, the prevention and decrease of pauperism 
and begging at the door". The Protestant clergymen of the 
town, and two men and two women from each parish, constituted 
a board of management. The organization soon proved its 
practical value. A superintendent was employed, the head- 
quarters of the Union were established in a house on Dunham 
Street, and the work of the association was beneficently main- 
tained. 

It may have been that the spirit of co-operation between the 
local churches, fostered by the Union for Home Work, had in it 
the suggestive germ which inspired the initiation in Pittsfield of 
the American Congress of Churches of 1885, and of several years 
subsequent thereto. The attention of the religious bodies of the 
country was awakened in 1883 by a circular letter, from seven 
Berkshire clergymen who represented the Episcopalian, Metho- 
dist, Congregational, and Baptist beliefs. It suggested a na- 
tional Church Congress, to bring together "men of freedom of 
conviction and largeness of view", who might unite, irrespective 
of church names, for Christian work in "social matters, such 
as temperance, divorce, and the relations of capital and labor". 
The signers were W. W. Newton, J. L. Jenkins, George W. Gile, 
C. H. Hamlin, T. T. Munger, George Skene, and J. M. Turner. 
The letter elicited a national response immediate and hearty 
A preliminary meeting was held at the American House in Pitts- 
field in June of 1884, when it was announced that the purpose 
of the movement was "to promote Christian unity, and to ad- 
vance the kingdom of God by a free discussion of the great re- 
ligious, moral, and social questions of the day." The first Con- 
gress assembled at Hartford in May of the next year, and other 
successful sessions were held at Cleveland, and St. Louis, but the 
organization was not destined to survive. 



FIFTEEN YEARS OF TOWN LIFE, 1876-1891 27 

The closing in 1884 of the school for girls at Maplewood was 
an event which, although recognized as inevitable, occasioned 
no little sentimental regret among the older families in the town. 
The institution had been in existence for forty-three years. In 
its flourishing prime, it had been a valuable contribution to the 
prosperity of the village, and had added its tone of refinement 
to social life. It could not well compete, however, with en- 
dowed colleges for women, and the deterioration of its latter 
years was due perhaps to a lack of capital sufficient to maintain 
an establishment of its size through a long season of financial 
depression. 

The period of business distress between 1870 and 1880 was 
burdensome to the textile manufacturers of Berkshire, and 
heavy failures in this branch of industry discouraged the people 
in both the northern and southern sections of the county. The 
textile mills of Pittsfield, on the contrary, were generally un- 
troubled, although the factory at Taconic was silent from 1873 
to 1880. The next decade was one of returning activity. In 
1890, the town's textile manufactories showed substantial gains, 
in spite of idle sets of cards at Barkerville and Pomeroy's. The 
mills of the Pontoosuc Company and of S. N, and C. Russell had 
held their own. Loss in local industry elsewhere had been coun- 
terbalanced by the success of W. E. Tillotson's new mill near 
Silver Lake, of the knitting shop of D. M. Collins and Company, 
of the manufactories at Bel Air and Morningside of Petherbridge 
and Purnell, and by the largely increased capacities at the mills 
controlled by Jabez L. and Thomas D. Peck on Peck's Road, by 
the firm of Tillotson and Power near West Pittsfield, and by 
that of Wilson and Glennon at Taconic. 

It is, however, in the development of manufacturing enter- 
prises other than textile that this era is chiefly significant in the 
industrial annals of the town. The machine shops, for example, 
maintained on McKay Street in 1872 by William Clark and 
Company, were becoming rapidly and soundly successful under 
the guidance of E. D. Jones. A. H, Rice and Company, on 
Robbins Avenue and later on Burbank Street, were busily rais- 
ing the quality and quantity of their output of braid. The 
brewery of Gimlich and White was establishing its excellent 



28 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

reputation. In the vicinity of Silver Lake, the manufacture of 
shoes was prosecuted with diligence by Robbins and Kellogg, 
the Pittsfield Shoe Company, and the Cheshire Shoe Company, 
of which the last-named was induced in 1889, partly by the co- 
operation of local investors, to move to Pittsfield. In 1883, the 
Kellogg Steam Power building at Morningside was a curious 
beehive, housing simultaneously some of the machinery of the 
Bel Air Manufacturing Company, of the Pittsfield Tack Com- 
pany, and of the Terry Clock Company. 

About 1879, George H. Bliss, then a resident of Pittsfield, in- 
vented a device for telephone signals, which was operated by 
clockwork attached to each instrument; and it was principally 
through his efforts in 1880 that the Terry Clock Company was 
organized, and that the three brothers Terry were persuaded to 
come to Pittsfield from Connecticut, where their ancestors had 
been some of the pioner clock-makers in the United States. 
The new company soon became of importance to the town, not 
only because of the number of persons it employed, but also 
because of the extended sale of its product, which advertised the 
name of Pittsfield in many thousands of households. In 1888, 
the business was reorganized, under the title of the Russell and 
Jones Clock Company, and soon afterward it was discontinued. 

The earlier career of the town's single paper mill, built in 
1863 by Thomas Colt close to the Dal ton line, was one of oddly 
contrasting vicissitudes. After a long period of idleness, the 
mill was purchased in 1876 by Chalmers Brothers and Baxter, a 
firm consisting of five brothers and their brother-in-law. They 
utilized the fine mill for the manufacture of paper for paper 
collars; nearly all the help employed, excepting the girls in the 
rag room, were the partners and members of their families, and 
the only large item of expense is said to have been the interest 
on the investment. In spite of this peculiar economical advan- 
tage, the venture did not prosper. In 1879 the property was 
bought by Crane and Company of Dalton; and the mill once 
devoted to the production of paper collars was expensively 
transformed into a manufactory of the most aristocratic paper, 
from one point of view, in the country — the paper used by the 
national government for its national bank bills and treasury 



FIFTEEN YEARS OF TOWN LIFE, 1876-1891 29 

notes. The building was burned in 1892, and was immediately 
replaced by the present "Government Mill". 

The most extraordinary industrial enterprise of this period 
of the town's history was conducted in 1887 on Depot Street, 
where an alchemist, who seems to have stepped out of the Middle 
Ages, set up a shop for the conversion of scrap iron into copper. 
He was a skilled metal-worker, who had served long and com- 
petently for the Terry Clock Company, and he was able to con- 
vince a local capitalist that he had discovered the mighty secret 
of transmutation. The local capitalist, accordingly, provided 
for him a medieval-looking laboratory, with mysterious vats, 
retorts, and all the machinery of Cagliostro. One day, while 
the alchemist was at dinner, the capitalist became overeager, 
and searched for copper in a bubbling vat, with the assistance of 
a lighted candle. The results were a violent explosion of gas, 
the flaying of the capitalistic countenance, the instant with- 
drawal of financial support, and the collapse of the business. 

In 1885, the Edison incandescent electric lamp was intro- 
duced to Pittsfield, through its use at Christmas time in the 
jewelry store on North Street of F. A. Robbins. It is probable 
that many people thought that the new light was merely an ad- 
vertising scheme for the holiday season; it is certain that no- 
body realized the far-reaching influence which it was destined 
to exert upon the prosperity and even upon the character of the 
town. The result of Mr. Robbins' trial of the device was the 
formation, in 1887, of a second electric lighting company, called 
the Pittsfield Illuminating Company; and of this small corpora- 
tion the president was William Stanley, Jr., whose home was 
then in Great Barrington. 

The local field was obviously not large enough for two electric 
lighting concerns, and in 1890 a consolidation was effected, under 
the name of the Pittsfield Electric Company. William A. 
Whittlesey, who had recently become a resident of the town, was 
the treasurer; and he built, on the corner of Eagle Street and 
Renne Avenue, a brick building for the company's plant. The 
upper floor was utilized by Mr. Stanley as a laboratory. He 
assembled a small group of young, zealous, and brilliant elec- 
tricians of his own stamp; and in 1890, at his suggestion, a few 



30 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

local stockholders organized upon a modest capital the Stanley 
Electric Manufacturing Company and went into the business of 
making electrical transformers in a small, wooden building on 
Clapp Avenue. There the seed was sown which was to germi- 
nate and grow into Pittsfield's greatest industrial activity — the 
manufacture of electrical machinery. 

It is a strange coincidence that the date of the beginning of 
this industry was also the date of the end of the town of Pitts- 
field and of the birth of the city. To say that the coincidence 
was other than fortuitous, would be, of course, wholly fantastic; 
nevertheless, it is true that a certain progressive spirit, evidenced 
by the change in 1891 to a city form of government, was quicken- 
ed by the advent of the keen, cosmopolitan men whom the new 
industry attracted to Pittsfield. The birth of the company was 
a peculiarly fitting conclusion to the period between 1876 and 
1891, which this chapter has briefly surveyed. 

Since the abandonment of his musket factory by Lemuel 
Pomeroy in 1846, Pittsfield's manufacturing had been practically 
confined, for nearly half a century, to the making of woolen and 
cotton cloth; and during the Civil War, and the decade there- 
after, the town's chief material dependence was the prosperity of 
its textile manufacturers — of men like the Barkers, the Stearnses, 
the Russells, the Pomeroy s, Edward Learned, and Jabez L. 
Peck. The notion that any other industries might be consider- 
ably developed seems not to have been apprehended until about 
1880, when the manufacture of shoes began to be important. 
However, a general condition of immobility had been produced. 
Agricultural interests, if not moribund, were at best infirm. 
When the "woolen business" slackened, the community twirled 
its thumbs, and waited placidly for better times. Pittsfield's 
banks had become concerned largely with upholding the textile 
mill owners, and Pittsfield's merchants had become dependent 
largely upon the running of the looms. 

After 1880, this somewhat over-complacent attitude showed 
signs of healthful change. The generation of older manufactur- 
ers began to pass away, and necessary changes in the ownership 
and control of some of the textile mills caused profitless intervals 
of disorganization. The younger business men sought oppor- 



FIFTEEN YEARS OF TOWN LIFE, 1876-1891 31 

tunity in other fields of endeavor. The banks, increased in 
number by the chartering of the Third National in 1881, culti- 
vated a less restricted clientage. Progressive merchants dis- 
played willingness to contribute toward the encouragement and 
importation of new enterprises. In 1890, the town, to use a 
Yankee phrase, was "yeasting" again, after a season of industrial 
sluggishness. 

The leaven was not without its effect upon social life, but in 
this respect Pittsfield surrendered its village traits with reluctance 
and perhaps with obstinacy. By no means had they been com- 
pletely surrendered in 1891. The increase of population in fif- 
teen years had been only about five thousand; the newer ele- 
ments had altered its social character only slightly. Strangers 
were sometimes amused, sometimes annoyed, to find that the 
geographical isolation of the town among the hills was still re- 
flected in the self-contentment of its pleasant and cultivated so- 
ciety, proud of the strides forward which had been taken in the 
administration of public charity, the maintenance of public edu- 
cation, the acquisition of public improvements and conveniences, 
and the development of new industries. 

Nor did the town lack a laureate. It was at this period that 
the community was exhilarated by the earnest poetical efforts of 
a respected citizen and capable manufacturer of step-ladders, 
who published a collection of his memorable verses; the quota- 
tion of a single stanza shall here suffice. 

"If Berkshire County was a wheel 
Pittsfield would be the hub, of course. 
It's truly called the county seat. 
Her attractions and location are hard to beat". 



CHAPTER III 
TOWN GOVERNMENT, 1876-1891 

THE chief interest which may be claimed for a description 
of Pittsfield's town government, during its final fifteen 
years, springs from the fact that for a part of that period 
Pittsfield was the largest community in the country conducting 
its public affairs according to the New England town meeting 
system. Though essays on the origin, theory, and practice of 
this familiar method of municipal government exist in an abun- 
dant store, the particular case of Pittsfield seems to warrant at- 
tention, because the town cliing to the town meeting system for 
so many years after it was large enough to be a city. 

In 1876, the gigantic and audacious peculations of the Tweed 
ring in New York had not only dismayed the people of the 
United States, but discredited for a time the city form of govern- 
ment throughout the country; and under these circumstances 
New England towns congratulated themselves with especial zest 
upon their possession of the town meeting system. To doubt 
its complete efficacy for good was to doubt the worth of self- 
government. The town meeting, as conducted in Pittsfield, 
was apparently the very exemplification of the democratic ideal, 
for with equal privileges of vote and voice the citizens assembled 
to legislate upon local affairs, to make appropriations for high- 
ways, schools, and contingent expenses, to elect and instruct the 
town officials, to revise and accept the jury list, and to transact 
any business not beyond the limit of their self-made warrant, 
previously published, under which the meeting was convened. 
It could erect special committees of its own, and could be ad- 
journed only at its own pleasure. 

The objects of consideration were multifarious. At the 
Pittsfield town meeting in 1876, it is of informal, but not in- 
credible, record that Oliver W. Robbins, a vigilant guardian of 



TOWN GOVERNMENT, 1876-1891 33 

the public weal, held the floor upon seventy-eight different oc- 
casions. The meeting might, and did, thoughtfully decide com- 
plicated questions of financial, governmental, or educational 
policy, and then proceed, with equal fervor, to discuss the wis- 
dom of illuminating the clock on the Baptist Church. Articles 
in the Pittsfield town meeting warrants of those days testify 
that the voters were as cheerfully ready "to see if the town will 
ask the legislature to extend to women who are citizens the right 
to hold town ofllces and to vote in town affairs on the same terms 
as male citizens", as they were "to see if the town will authorize 
the school committee to transport scholars from the Sikes Dis- 
trict to the Tracy District for an experiment"; and the esthetic 
value of vocal music was debated with no less pertinacity than 
was the right method of building sluiceways. 

Such a system could not fail to be broadly instructive. It 
taught each voter a lesson in practical government by accustom- 
ing him to the methods of public deliberation, and it informed 
him plainly of his duties and rights as a citizen. He could ac- 
tually see that his vote affected, not only the community vaguely 
as a whole, but also himself, immediately and personally. He 
had directly shared, for example, in selecting the assessor, who 
determined the amount of his tax, and the collector, to whom he 
paid it; the juryman, to whom his most important interests 
might be confided, and the constable, who was charged with the 
maintenance of the peace of the Commonwealth around his 
dwelling; and, in the fire district meeting, he had helped to 
choose the men whose duty it might be to save that dwelling 
from destruction. 

The prayer, with which the town meeting was invariably 
opened, was not an empty formality. 

The selectmen of Pittsfield in 1876 were John C. Parker, 
Alonzo E. Goodrich, and Solomon N. Russell, and each one of 
them was re-elected annually until 1881. Under the town 
meeting system, striking instances of continual re-election are 
noticeable, and the traditional fickleness of a free and popular 
electorate is not conspicuously apparent in the history of New 
England towns. In the Berkshire town of Peru, for example, 
one selectman was re-elected annually for half a century. An 



34 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

essay by John Fiske cites an instance where, in New England, 
the office of town clerk was filled by three members of one family 
for 114 consecutive years. In Pittsfield, John C. West declined 
re-election in 1875, having been a member of the board of select- 
men for twenty-two years, and its chairman for nineteen. As 
town treasurer, Josiah Carter served from 1852 to 1883. Gilbert 
West was habitually chosen by the voters of the fire district to 
be a member of the prudential committee; and, beginning in 
1864, John Feeley and William R. Plunkett were elected water 
commissioners continuously until 1891. 

These long tenures of office gave to a town experienced ser- 
vice; but the tendency which they encouraged toward the more 
or less permanent surrender of authority was at curious variance 
with the idea of popular sovereignty embodied in the town 
meeting system. The family mentioned by Mr. Fiske can be 
fancied to have laid claim to a sort of vested right to the office 
of town clerk, and in fact such a claim was doubtless often opera- 
tive. 

The theory of the system was based upon the presence and 
actual participation, in town meeting, of the entire body politic. 
But Pittsfield in 1876 had more than two thousand voters. 
There was no meeting place in town where two thousand people 
could be sheltered. The town hall seated fewer than five 
hundred. Two years later, Burbank's Hall on West Street began 
to be the customary scene of the annual town meeting; in 1880, 
it was held at the Academy of Music; in 1889, at the Coliseum 
on North Street, which was capable of containing about half the 
voters. Nevertheless, there was not serious complaint at any 
time that these halls were overcrowded. For the numerous 
special meetings, where business of much importance might be 
transacted, the town hall seems always to have been large 
enough. One special meeting of the fire district, duly adver- 
tised by warrant, was called to order at the appointed hour, with 
six voters present. An indistinct idea having been advanced 
that seven were required for a quorum, another citizen was en- 
ticed into the town hall from a bench in the Park, and an ex- 
pensive sewer was then authorized. About fifty men attended 
the adjourned town meeting of 1868; a motion was carried to 



TOWN GOVERNMENT, 1876-1891 35 

reconsider certain decisions of the previous day regarding the 
pubhc schools; six members were added to the school committee 
of three; and the employment of a superintendent was voted, 
for the first time. 

It can readily be imagined that injustice might be wrought 
when proceedings like those were possible. Especially of late 
years, the experience of New England towns shows that the 
town meeting system is not a talisman against corruption and 
inefficiency. Given absentee wealth, or a deteriorated electorate, 
and the town meeting system may foster in a rural village as 
vicious and wasteful a political ring as ever burdened a great 
city. Without accepting completely the bold dictum of Alexan- 
der Pope that the best form of government is that which is best 
administered, it is demonstrable that the good results of the 
town meeting system in Pittsfield were exactly what the voters 
caused them to be; and that whatever degree resulted of equi- 
table and economical administration of public affairs is to be at- 
tributed not to the form of government, but to the quality of 
citizenship. 

As early as 1879, Pittsfield was the largest town, properly 
so-called, in the United States, and perhaps nowhere else in the 
country did the affections of the people cherish so fondly the 
democratic town meeting and school district systems. School 
districts were abolished, much against the will of a majority 
of Pittsfield's voters, by the General Court in 1869. Six years 
later, the legislature offered a city charter to the town. The 
town did not take the trouble to vote upon it, and the charter 
was allowed to expire. The Pittsfield of 1876 was in no mood 
to experiment with municipal finances. Times were hard, and 
already the town considered itself heavily in debt. 

At the close of the Civil War, the town indebtedness of Pitts- 
field was about $85,000. During the next three years, a period 
of marked local prosperity, this indebtedness was greatly re- 
duced; but in 1868 began a series of extraordinary expenses at- 
tendant upon the erection of the county buildings, the extension 
of Fenn Street to North, the establishment of the Athenaeum, 
and the improvement of the Park. In 1876, the town debt was 
$180,000. The town's valuation, about $8,000,000, was less 



36 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

than that of the year before, and decreased annually until 1881. 
The ordinary annual expenses, for which appropriations were 
made at the town meeting, were for several years in the close 
neighborhood of $90,000, while the average tax rate, including 
that of the fire district, was about $16 for every thousand. 

The joint salary of the board of three selectmen was cus- 
tomarily fixed at $1,000. The board was the executive head of 
the town government; and in addition was charged specifically 
with the supervision of highways and bridges; the care of the 
poor, in and out of the almshouse; the drawing of jurors; and 
the maintenance of order, by means of a police force. The office 
was no sinecure, but a proposal to increase the membership of the 
board was defeated more than once. 

John C. Parker, S. N. Russell and A. E. Goodrich, serving as 
selectmen in 1876, were succeeded in 1881 by Thomas A. Oman, 
F. E. Kernochan, and John E. Merrill. Messrs. Oman and 
Kernochan were re-elected in 1882, and Mr. Merrill's place on 
the board was taken by George Y. Learned. In 1883, the town 
meeting chose F. E. Kernochan, Dr. William M. Mercer, and 
Franklin F. Read; in 1884, Thomas A. Oman, Laforest Logan, 
and DeWitt C. Munyan; in 1885 and 1886, DeWitt C. Munyan, 
William W. Whiting, and Edward N. Robbins; in 1887, Henry 
J. Jones, William W. Whiting, and Hezekiah S. Russell; in 1888, 
Henry J. Jones, Hezekiah S. Russell and George Y. Learned; 
in 1889 and 1890, George Y. Learned, W\ F. Harrington, and 
Eugene H. Robbins. The town clerk in 1876 was Theodore L, 
Allen. James Wilson was chosen to that office in 1877, and 
was annually re-elected until 1881, when he was followed by 
John F. Van Deusen, who served until 1886. Frederick H. 
Printiss was clerk during the remainder of the existence of the 
town government. Succeeding Josiah Carter, the town treasurer 
for thirty years, Erwin H. Kennedy was elected treasurer in 
1883 and served until the installation of the city government in 
1891. 

The town was divided into seventeen highway districts, for 
each of which a different "surveyor" was responsible. The 
seventeen surveyors disbursed their allowances of the highway 
appropriation practically at their discretion. This arrangement, 



TOWN GOVERNMENT, 1876-1891 37 

obviously injudicious, was productive more often of accusations 
of jobbery, and even of fraud, than of good roads. At the town 
meeting of 1879, the selectmen, in accordance with a recent act 
of the legislature, were elected road commissioners; and the 
highways came nominally under their sole superintendence, in 
spite of persistent disapproval by many voters. Centralized 
superintendence in public concerns of any sort was viewed in 
New England, and especially then in Pittsfield, with a jealous 
eye. 

The condition of the highways was a perennial thorn in the 
flesh of the selectmen. Their annual report of 1886 frankly con- 
fessed that "in the spring and fall months, the roads were almost 
impassable for heavy teams." Every winter the town paid for 
repairs to sleighs broken in dive-holes in the streets, and un- 
happy passengers by stage to Lanesborough were sometimes 
tossed about for three hours before reaching their destination. 
Complaints were constant, and the Eagle once went to the length 
of declaring that travel by road in April was "well-nigh impos- 
sible". The first example of roadmaking according to modern 
standards was the road to Dalton from Tyler Street, built in 
1888. 

Crushed stone was not used on the streets before 1884. Its 
value then was so apparent that, two years later, the town voted 
to buy a stone-crusher, and to begin what the selectmen, with a 
somewhat pathetic hopefulness, called the "permanent" im- 
provement of North Street. The surface of the street, however, 
was coy of permanence in this respect; and unfeeling critics 
remarked that in order to find in the spring permanent improve- 
ments, which had been made during the previous summer, it was 
necessary to dig for them. In 1889 the selectmen's report as- 
serted that the only way to secure satisfactory conditions on the 
125 miles of roads and streets was to employ one superintendent 
for the entire system; and this was done, with good results. 

Street drainage for the disposal of surface water was not a 
simple matter, because of the relics of primeval swamps which 
still survived in the central village; and the town's sewers for 
this purpose were always a perplexing problem. The town 
meeting was tame wherein the notorious "bog sewer", running 



38 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

south from West Street, was not provocative of a parliamentary 
skirmish. In 1878, twenty-five of the town's old wooden bridges 
had already been replaced by substantial structures of iron, six 
having been built in that year. The tornado of 1879 compelled 
the immediate construction of several others, and the town was 
never backward in meeting a reasonable demand for those con- 
veniences. 

In spending the taxpayers' money for the relief of the poor, 
outside of the almshouse, the selectmen were almost unrestricted. 
The system was readily susceptible to abuse. As a charitable 
method it was probably demoralizing, and it was clearly in 
danger of misemployment for political purposes. To confide 
to elective officers the irresponsible distribution of so large and 
elastic a public fund among the electorate seems pregnant with 
mischief. In respect of no other official function is it more ap- 
parent that the success of the New England town government 
must depend largely upon the character of those who administer 
it. The selectmen of Pittsfield chose one of their number to be 
the sole agent of public charity. To him the destitute came for 
relief; he investigated their plight; bought and distributed sup- 
plies; found them employment, when he could; and was, with 
literal exactness, a town father. During periods of distress, like 
that between 1873 and 1879, his duty demanded especial dis- 
cretion, wisdom, and human sympathy. 

After the formation of the Union for Home Work, the town, 
for a few years, made that useful organization its official almoner; 
and afterward the selectmen were authorized to employ an 
agent, who superintended the town's treatment of its poor. 

The voters elected two constables, and the selectmen were 
authorized, if they chose, to appoint in addition a police force 
for the preservation of public order. John M. Hatch was one 
of the constables elected in 1875. He was an active, resolute 
man, who had spent a portion of his youth on the western fron- 
tier; and as captain of "the night watch" he introduced vigor- 
ous methods, surprising to those who had been accustomed to 
the obese tranquilities of George Hayes, the other constable. 
Hatch failed of re-election in 1876, and the selectmen, promptly 
utilizing their prerogative, appointed him chief of police, to the 



TOWN GOVERNMENT, 1876-1891 39 

discomfiture of the element which had defeated him at the polls. 
The first formal report of a chief of Pittsfield police was submit- 
ted by John M. Hatch in 1877. Under the town government, 
the force increased from seven men in 1876 to fourteen in 1890, 
and was never otherwise than creditable to the selectmen who 
appointed and controlled it. 

A board of health, after 1869, was regularly chosen by the 
town. The recommendations of the board were alert, sagacious, 
trenchantly expressed, and extremely unpopular. During the 
final quarter of the nineteenth century, in New England, the 
value of public sanitation was feebly apprehended, and any in- 
trusion upon the domestic economy of a household was resented 
with honest wrath. Efforts of the earlier boards of health were 
intelligent and faithful; but they were empowered imperfectly 
both by statute and by public sentiment, and fortunately they 
never in Pittsfield could speak with the tragic emphasis which 
might have resulted from the scourge of an epidemic of disease. 
The health of the community was excellent. 

The town meeting voters elected a school committee, and 
minutely discussed all phases of its administration of school af- 
fairs, from the selection of books to the ventilation of rooms. 
When a new schoolhouse was to be built, its erection was placed 
in the hands of a special committee, responsible only to the town. 
Pittsfield had unwillingly discarded in 1869 its old school district 
system, with its thirteen separate little republics; and for many 
years there was observable here the same hostile suspicion of 
centralized authority which existed in the case of the manage- 
ment of the highways. Whether for good or evil, this suspicion 
did not make for stability in the conduct of the common schools; 
but another chapter will show how a few wise and determined 
men were finally able so to use the town meeting system as to 
obtain public schools for the town of Pittsfield as efficient as 
the average of those in Western Massachusetts. 

Partly for the use of its public schools, the town was once 
offered an extraordinary endowment. Abraham Burbank died 
in 1887. He was a remarkable man and left a remarkable will. 
In this, after providing for the support of his widow, children, 
and grandchildren, he made further devises by which he intended 



40 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

that the bulk of his estate, inventoried at about $350,000, 
should vest in the town of Pittsfield. The town, however, took 
no direct beneficial interest in the estate devised; if it accepted 
the devise, it must hold the estate in trust for certain charitable 
purposes expressed in the will. These were the creation of a 
permanent fund for the use of the common schools, the erection 
and maintenance of a free hospital, and the establishment of a 
public park, all three of which were to bear the testator's name. 

DiflBculties were seen at once in the way of the town's under- 
taking the complicated management of a large private estate, 
for a period perhaps of fifty or seventy-five years. It was point- 
ed out that the town, in its corporate capacity, would be obliged 
not only to act as the responsible landlord of several North 
Street blocks, whose structural qualities were not auspicious, 
but also to conduct a hotel. Furthermore, the will provided 
that "the Burbank Hotel shall be kept as a hotel forever, and 
if it is destroyed by fire, or otherwise, it shall be rebuilt in a good, 
substantial manner." Grave doubts, too, existed as to the legal 
construction of many of the testamentary clauses, and, indeed, 
as to the validity of the will itself. 

Nevertheless, a due respect for Mr. Burbank's memory 
prompted the town to take measures to respect his charitable 
intentions. A committee was appointed to confer with the 
heirs on the subject of a compromise. Three compromise pro- 
posals accordingly were offered jointly by the committee and 
the heirs to a special town meeting; and the voters accepted 
one which, releasing all the interests of the town under the will, 
immediately awarded from the estate $8,000 to the House of 
Mercy, $2,000 to the Berkshire County Home for Aged Women, 
and a broad tract of land on the shore of Onota Lake to the town, 
to be used for a park. On June second, 1890, this adjustment 
was confirmed by the Supreme Judicial Court. 

Theoretically, every voter was an active and constant auditor 
of the accounts of the town's finances. In practice, the voters 
were content annually to choose a committee "to settle with 
the town treasurer"; and the sole results of the committee's 
labors were half a dozen lines in the treasurer's yearly report, 
commending the financial administration. The mechanical re- 



TOWN GOVERNMENT, 1876-1891 41 

currence of this compliment had probably a certain hynoptic ef- 
fect, upon the voters as well as upon the treasurer and upon each 
succeeding committee of audit. In 1878, however, the members 
of the committee "respectfully recommend that the Collector 
and Treasurer be instructed to keep the accounts of the town 
entirely distinct and separate from those of the fire district". 
It does not appear that the recommendation was regarded as 
mandatory. 

A special committee in 1879 was appointed to investigate 
and report on the debt of the town. The committee was of un- 
usual ability, being composed of Henry W. Taft, James M. 
Barker, and Marshall Wilcox, and their report, as might have 
been expected, was exhaustive, lucid, and cogent. It resulted in 
the establishment of a sinking fund for the purpose of extinguish- 
ing the town debt. But even this skilled and conscientious com- 
mittee was forced to acknowledge that it could not "exactly as- 
certain" the state of the town's indebtedness; and the report 
goes on to say that "it has not been the custom of the Treasurer 
to keep a list of the notes or other obligations of the town, nor 
have the Boards of Selectmen been in the habit of making any 
record of the loans made for the town." 

This was in 1880. The explosion did not occur until 1886. 
Then the town was amazed to discover, almost by accident, that 
during the service of a veteran treasurer, who had held office 
from 1852 to 1883, a portion of his accounts had been in a condi- 
tion resembling chaos. No stain whatever was found on his 
personal integrity. Keen-eyed experts disagreed in an attempt 
to tell the voters how much money the former treasurer owed 
the town and how much the town owed him. At length, a town 
meeting voted to drop the entire matter. The truth seems to be 
that the financial machinery of Pittsfield's town government, con- 
sidered as a thing apart from those who manned it, was loosely 
jointed. 

It has been intimated that the confusion of accounts was due 
partly to the existence within the town government of the fire 
district government. In theory, each was distinct and inde- 
pendent, but practically there was a conflict of jurisdiction. 
The town, for instance, had control by statute over the streets, 



42 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

but not over the sidewalks, which were controlled by the fire 
district. The district's commissioner might fix a grade and 
build a sidewalk, whereupon the town's highway surveyor might 
order the street lowered, and thus leave the sidewalk futilely 
aloft, and discomfit also the district's water commissioner, who 
had fondly believed that his mains were safely below the reach 
of frost, and the district's commissioner of sewers, who might 
find his pipes unexpectedly ornamenting the surface of the em- 
barrassed thoroughfare. 

The fire district was an area of about four square miles, with 
the Park nearly in the center. Its boundaries were extremely 
erratic, running here through open farm land, and there along a 
village street, so that a householder on one side of the way 
might be assessed for fire district improvements, while his 
neighbor on the other side might enjoy the same residential ad- 
vantages and fail to find the price thereof in his tax bill. The 
afifairs of the district, which had been incorporated by the legis- 
lature in 1844, were administered according to the town meeting 
principle, and an open assembly of all of its voters decided every 
question of policy or method. It was empowered to maintain 
waterworks, a fire department, street lights, sewers and drains, 
and sidewalks; and for these purposes it made appropriations 
and taxed itself. It elected its own appropriate commissioners 
and committees, and a chief engineer, with his three assistants, 
for the fire department; the clerk, collector, and treasurer who 
served the town, served the district likewise. 

In the present general consideration of public affairs undei 
the town government, it seems to be necessary to observe of the 
volunteer fire department only that the "firemen's vote" could 
have been made a political factor of importance. 175 members 
were carried on the rolls of the four volunteer companies in 1876. 
They were energetic, representative men, and the headquarters 
of each company served every purpose of permanent clubrooms. 
That they did not become subject to unworthy political control 
was due to their vigorous, if sometimes turbulent, democracy, 
and to the healthy rivalries among the independent organizations. 

The water supply, obtained by the district from Ashley Lake 
in 1855 at an initial expense of about $50,000, had not been in- 



TOWN GOVERNMENT, 1876-1891 43 

creased until 1876, when the Sackett Brook extension was finish- 
ed. A few years later, the commissioners doubled the capacity 
of Ashley Lake by raising the dam; and in 1883 they announced 
that the original waterworks had been practically reconstructed, 
and that "the district has its waterworks without having con- 
tributed to their construction or maintenance in any other way 
than by the payment of reasonable rates, for which an equivalent 
return is made to each contributor." This condition of things 
testifies to good management, especially in light of the fact that 
the original piping was so faulty that over one hundred leaks, on 
account of frost, had been known to damage the mains during a 
single winter. The policy of the commissioners was to make 
yearly improvements, and to keep pace with the growth of the 
town without burdening the district by a debt and interest 
charge larger than the immediate future required. There was 
frequently almost an entire failure of pressure on Jubilee Hill; 
but in 1889 this deficiency was remedied by the laying of a new 
sixteen-inch main to the reservoir, and when the fire district 
turned over the waterworks to the city in 1891, they were com- 
mendably adequate. The construction account was then about 
$200,000, and the yearly rates paid $12,000 on the principal of 
the debt, after providing for interest and cost of maintenance. 

The fire district, however, was never able to equip itself with 
a completely efficient system of sewers. In 1876, public sewers 
were provided by the district in only a few of the streets, and an 
annual appropriation of $100 sufficed to cleanse and repair them. 
The chronic and righteous indignation of the town's board of 
health over such a lamentable state of affairs had little effect 
upon the voters of the district. In this matter the conflict of 
jurisdiction between town and district was peculiarly vexatious. 
The fire district voted in 1884 that a committee be appointed 
"to consult with a committee of the town to see what the duties 
of the town and fire district are, relative to drains for surface 
water, and that the committee also be asked to examine into 
the rights of the town in the sewers now existing." Nothing 
seems to have come of this. The district was not spurred to 
thorough action until the closing years of its existence, when its 
committee, in co-operation with a committee of the town, em_ 



44 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

ployed an engineer to make comprehensive plans for a system 
of sewers; but the final execution of these plans was accomplished 
under a city form of government. 

Most of Pittsfield's street lamps in 1876 had been furnished 
by private subscription. They were lighted by gas at an annual 
expense to the fire district of $25 each. In 1883 electric lighting 
was first seen on the streets, and in 1887 the fire district main- 
tained thirty electric street lamps, and seventy-four for which 
gas was used. The expenditure by the district of money for 
street lighting was never very popular. The lamps were lighted 
only on moonless nights and were extinguished at midnight; 
and, at the fire district meeting of 1876, a proposal to substitute 
kerosene for gas, in the interests of economy, found well-inten- 
tioned support. 

The construction of sidewalks by the commissioners, chosen 
for that purpose by the district, was also greatly hindered by the 
conflict of jurisdiction over the streets, which existed between the 
fire district and the town. In 1881, the commissioners declared 
emphatically that "some understanding or agreement ought to 
be made between the town and the district in regard to their 
relative rights and obligations" in this matter; and they com- 
plained that it was useless to build sidewalks only to see them 
destroyed by imperfect drainage of surface water, a defect that 
the district was powerless to remedy, since the streets were in 
the province of the town. Except on portions of North and West 
Streets and on Park Square, the sidewalks were made usually of 
gravel, until 1887, when a systematic construction of concrete 
sidewalks was commenced under the direction of Frank W. 
Hinsdale. During the first year, concrete to the extent of 
36,000 square feet was laid on the sidewalks at a cost of $7,250; 
and the district thereafter prosecuted the work with diligence. 

This instance, albeit in a matter perhaps of minor import- 
ance, is illustrative of an essential advantage of the town meet- 
ing system, as revealed by a survey of the last fifteen years of 
the town government of Pittsfield. Any citizen, whether in or 
out of oflice, had his fair opportunity of impressing any plan of 
public betterment directly upon the voters. If his scheme was 
practicable, if he was a man of force, if he understood his fellow 



TOWN GOVERNMENT, 1876-1891 45 

citizens, and if they understood him, then in Pittsfield he seldom 
failed to be of benefit to his town. This opportunity tended to 
attract every type of citizenship to the service of the community. 
It tended to make every man, in a sense, public-spirited, and to 
make him attentive to the counsels of M^isdom and experience, 
which a Pittsfield town meeting usually enjoyed. 

As a consequence, the record of this final decade-and-a-half of 
the town abounds in examples of unselfish, earnest, patient de- 
votion to the local welfare, and under the influence of these ex- 
amples something like a habit of public service was implanted 
among the Pittsfield men of those days. It is doubtful whether 
any officer of town or fire district was adequately remunerated; 
it is certain that for many important and laborious duties the 
town readily obtained the best of skilled service from its citizens 
without any remuneration whatever. Cumbersome and inexact 
the machinery of Pittsfield's town government may have been; 
but nevertheless, when the town expired in 1891, the newborn 
city fell heir not only to a solvent municipality, but also to a 
patriotic, hardy, and self-reliant civic consciousness. 



CHAPTER IV 
A GROUP OF TOWNSMEN 

THE design of this chapter is to present sketches of some 
Pittsfield men whose lives ended during the final fifteen 
years of the existence of the town government, that is to 
say, between 1876 and 1891, while of other prominent and helpful 
townsmen, who died during the same period, biographical men- 
tion shall hereafter be made in the treatment of particular topics. 

The most distinguished citizen of Pittsfield in 1876 was Wil- 
liam Francis Bartlett, for he had then recently become a figure of 
national significance because of his eloquent, simple, Lincoln-like 
pleas for reconciliation between the North and the South. In 
the thirty-fifth year of his age, he declined offers from leaders 
both of the Republican and of the Democratic parties to place 
him in nomination for election as governor or lieutenant governor 
of the Commonwealth; and when he was thirty-six, he died at 
Pittsfield, which had been his home for most of the final ten 
years of his life. 

He was born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, on June sixth, 1840, 
and was the son of Charles L. Bartlett. In 1861, he was a 
junior at Harvard College; in 1865, he was a brigadier general of 
volunteers in the Civil War, commanding a division of the Ninth 
Army Corps; and before his twenty-fifth birthday he was com- 
missioned a major general by brevet. Four times he was 
wounded; during the early part of his service he was maimed by 
the amputation of a leg; in 1864 he was captured and held in 
the Libby prison, where he contracted a cruel disease, which 
finally caused his death ; nevertheless, the close of the war found 
him ready for duty. In 1862 he had come to Pittsfield to drill 
the Forty-ninth Massachusetts, a Berkshire regiment, with 
which he served for several months as colonel, and in 1865 he was 
married to Miss Mary Agnes Pomeroy, daughter of Robert Pom- 



A GROUP OF TOWNSMEN 47 

eroy of Pittsfield. General Bartlett lived for a time in Dal ton 
and in Pittsfield on East Street; in 1870 he built the house on 
Wendell Avenue, now numbered thirty-one, where he died, 
December seventeenth, 1876. 

It was while he was a resident of Pittsfield that the complete 
heroism of his character was revealed to the nation. The ani- 
mosity toward the defeated and prostrate South, which was 
fostered by some politicians of that ignoble period of reconstruc- 
tion, was abhorrent to his purer patriotism, nor was it in his 
chivalrous soul to distrust brave men who had honestly laid 
down their arms. Public expression of sentiments like his was 
not then common. When he gave them utterance at the Har- 
vard commencement in 1874, he stirred the country with extra- 
ordinary force. "I firmly believe", said he, "that when the gal- 
lant men of Lee's army surrendered at Appomattox .... 
they followed the example of their heroic chief, and with their 
arms, laid down forever their disloyalty to the Union. Take 
care, then, lest you repel by injustice, or suspicion, or even by in- 
difference, the love of men who now speak with pride of that flag 
as 'our flag' ". 

It is difficult to appreciate the electrical effect of a speech like 
that only ten years after the great war. Let an auditor testify. 
General Bartlett's biographer, F. W. Palfrey, thus describes 
the scene: "When Bartlett arose, and the first words uttered 
by his deep and manly voice were heard, and the audience be- 
came aware that they came from the shattered soldier whose tall 
and slender form and wasted face they had seen at the head of 
the procession as he painfully marshalled it that day, a great 

silence fell on the multitude All felt that an 

event had taken place". 

An event had taken place, indeed. As it had been given to 
Bartlett to embody the perfect chivalry of war, so it was given 
to him to embody the perfect chivalry of peace. 

The next year, he was asked to participate in the observance 
of the centennial anniversary of the fight at Lexington. There 
he spoke in the presence of President Grant and many digni- 
taries; and there, with the shadow of death visible on his coun- 
tenance, he made another plea for his former enemies. "Men 



48 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

cannot", he said, "always choose the right cause; but when, hav- 
ing chosen that which conscience dictates, they are ready to die 
for it, if they justify not their cause, they at least ennoble them- 
. selves". 

In the North, men began to turn to Bartlett as a representa- 
tive of their ideal of reconciliation. In the South, among the 
people against whom he had fought, he became a popular idol. 
Shortly after his Lexington speech, General Bartlett went to 
Richmond, where he had business interests. The Virginian vet- 
erans of Lee's army met him at the railroad station, unhooked 
the horses from his carriage, and drew it themselves through the 
streets. There is good reason to believe that, had his days been 
prolonged, the nation would have honored him with high office. 

Whenever his enfeebled strength permitted, he was always 
ready to serve the town of his adoption; and he was prominent 
in the Pittsfield Young Men's Association, a warden of St. 
Stephen's Church, a member of the original board of trustees of 
the Berkshire Athenaeum, and of the committee which super- 
vised the erection of the Soldiers' Monument. General Bart- 
lett's influence upon the community life of Pittsfield was none 
the less powerful because it was gentle and unobtrusive. He 
bore himself so modestly that not all of his neighbors quite 
realized his greatness, nor could the village then perceive that his 
agency for good, so far as it affected Pittsfield, was more potent 
than that of many other valued citizens. It is apparent, how- 
ever, that few men so strongly uplifted the character of the town. 
As they grew older, the Pittsfield men of his generation cherished 
with increasing gratitude the memories of his quiet courage in 
physical distress and adverse fortune, his sweet and simple 
Christianity, and his flawless, clear-sighted, and intrepid pa- 
triotism ; and in the city today the inspiration of his life is still a 
beneficent and active force. 

In person he was singularly handsome, commanding, and, 
as in speech and demeanor, knightly. His grave is in the Pitts- 
field cemetery. The Commonwealth has placed a bronze 
statue of him in the State House; and the occasion of its unveil- 
ing in 1904 was graced by the delivery of an oration of truth and 
beauty by Morris Schaff, General Bartlett's fellow townsman in 



A GROUP OF TOWNSMEN 49 

Pittsfield. Of the statue, a noble work by Daniel Chester 
French, a replica was presented to Berkshire County by the 
sculptor. This now stands in the armory on Summer Street. 
The city in 1911 honored one of its public schools by giving to it 
General Bartlett's name. 

The public schools of the town lost an enthusiastic and help- 
ful friend in 1876, when, on September twenty-ninth, Charles B. 
Redfield died. He removed his residence from Albany to Pitts- 
field about 1867, purchasing the house on South Street which had 
been built by Dr. Timothy Childs, opposite the medical college. 
Mr. Redfield served the cause of free education in Pittsfield when 
it was sorely in need of supporters so enlightened and diligent. 
He was a leader of the committee charged with the ungrateful 
duty of initiating the town system of schools which superseded 
the district school system, then popularly admired. The task, 
however, was congenial to his progressive, active spirit and to his 
cultivated mind; and his energetic devotion to its accomplish- 
ment was productive of much permanent benefit to the town. 

Thomas Colt, son of Ezekiel R. Colt, was born at Pittsfield, 
June twenty -eighth, 1823, and there died, November eighth, 1876. 
He was graduated from Williams College in the class of 1842. 
In 1856 he purchased an interest in the paper mill in the eastern 
part of the town, on the site of the present Government Mill, and 
in 1862 became its sole owner. The factory village there was 
named after him, Coltsville. 

Mr. Colt presided at town meetings more frequently than did 
any other citizen in the town's history. He was a forceful, 
broad-minded, scholarly man, ambitious in the conduct of his 
personal business, and at the same time ready with strong sup- 
port for worthy community causes. The excellent Pittsfield 
Young Men's Association, for example, was in large measure 
financially sustained by him in his later years. In affairs of local 
government, his leadership was dignified and respectful of the 
town, which he greatly loved. Mr. Colt was an ardent and af- 
fectionate antiquarian, and the movement which resulted in the 
preparation and publication of J. E. A. Smith's "History of 
Pittsfield" was stimulated and directed by him. 

Justus Merrill linked the town of Pittsfield impressively with 



50 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

its historic past. His father, Capt. Hosea Merrill, was a Pitts- 
field veteran of the Revolution; and Mr. Merrill in his youth 
had been an ofiicial at the military cantonment on North Street, 
near the present Maplewood, where British prisoners were held 
during the second war with England. Mr. Merrill was born in 
1792, and died at Pittsfield, August nineteenth, 1879. Like his 
father before him, he was a typical Berkshire farmer of the old- 
fashioned, conscientious sort, of assistance in town affairs and 
cultivating with contentment his ancestral acres on the southern 
shores of Pontoosuc Lake. 

The death of George W. Campbell, on February thirteenth, 
1880, marked the passing of the second Pittsfield generation of 
the men of a family to whose restless effort the prosperity of the 
village had been much indebted. Mr. Campbell was born in 
Pittsfield, July fourth, 1804. His father, David Campbell, was 
the landlord of a tavern on Bank Row. In that center of town 
activities Mr. Campbell spent his boyhood, and witnessed the 
meetings preparatory to the establishment of the early textile 
factories of Pittsfield. In 1825 the Pontoosuc Woolen Manu- 
facturing Company was formed, and Mr. Campbell was one of its 
promoters, remaining actively connected with the enterprise un- 
til 1841. From 1853 to 1861 he was president of the Agricultural 
Bank. He was a friend of Horace Greeley, and not dissimilar to the 
great editor in that he combined a certain childlike simplicity 
with worldly knowingness and quaint idiosyncracies. Possessing 
little of the nervous, eager temperament characteristic of his 
father and his brothers, he stood in public and business affairs 
for a conservatism often valuable to the community. 

While the brilliant career of James D. Colt at the bar and 
on the bench ornamented the Commonwealth, his career in the 
public and social life of the town of Pittsfield was no less bright 
and memorable. James Dennison Colt, son of Ezekiel R. Colt, 
was born in Pittsfield, October eighth, 1819, and there died, 
August ninth, 1881. He was graduated in 1838 from Williams; 
in after years he was a trustee of the college, and a president of 
its alumni association. Admitted to the Berkshire bar in 1842, 
he formed a partnership with Julius Rockwell. 

It was not long before the law firm of Rockwell and Colt, 



A GROUP OF TOWNSMEN 51 

having offices on the lower floor of Pittsfield's town hall, ac- 
quired a sort of institutional importance in Western Massachu- 
setts. A position on the bench of the Superior Court was offered 
in 1859 to each of the members of the distinguished partnership. 
Mr. Rockwell accepted, but Mr. Colt remained in the practice 
of an advocate, steadily advancing his reputation throughout the 
state as a learned, adroit, and eloquent trial lawyer. In 1865 
he was appointed a justice of the Supreme Judicial Court. Ill 
health enforced his resignation a year later. In 1868, however, 
he was able to accept a reappointment to the bench of the same 
high tribunal, which he continued to adorn until his death. He 
was married in 1857 to Miss Elizabeth Gilbert of Gilbertsville, 
New York. 

He was, in the words of Chief Justice Gray, "the most popular 
of judges", although his spirit was inflammable, readily taking 
fire at opposition or difficulty. Judge Colt's associates on the 
bench appear to have valued him especially because of his quick 
scorn for chicanery, and for his thorough understanding of 
questions of state and municipal government. To the writing of 
the opinions of the court he habitually devoted an unusual 
amount of thought and labor, for he was naturally a speaker 
rather than a writer. His judicial duties, therefore, were pecul- 
iarly onerous. 

He shouldered the burden of them with unsparing fidelity; 
and with equal fidelity he was always ready to concern himself 
with the best interests of his native town. He served as a se- 
lectman, as a member of almost countless town committees, and 
as a representative of Pittsfield in the state legislature. No man 
oould more effectually inform or enliven a town meeting. Wise, 
humorous, and nimble-minded, of large frame, portly aspect and 
broad features, he knew well how to sway an audience of Yankees. 
Once, at a meeting of the Pittsfield fire district, it was moved to 
appropriate a considerable sum of money to install a telegraphic 
fire alarm. Numerous speakers supported the motion. The 
ubiquitous agent of the fire alarm installation company was in 
the hall. "This man", said Judge Colt, pointing at him, "this 
man proposes to sit for years in the First Church belfry, like a 
spider, and spin his great web of wires over our helpless village, 



58 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

but here is one little fly who doesn't intend to be caught". The 
motion was uproariously defeated. 

Upon occasions of dignity, his addresses were marked by an 
eloquence at the same time classical and nervous; for his tem- 
perament was sensitively and delicately organized, and it found 
no right expression in conventional phrases. 

He loved to meet humankind and to see people enjoy them- 
selves. In social life he was the most un judgelike of men. It 
is related of him that, on a railroad jovirney, his stories and his 
jovial good nature would often keep a carfuU of passengers in 
hilarity for fifty miles. His face, his voice, and his wit were 
known nearly as well in Boston as in Berkshire. But of Judge 
Colt it is to be observed, as it is of many Pittsfield men of his 
generation, that he reserved his best for the village of his birth 
and for the community wherein he had grown to maturity. 
The business of lawyer and jurist often carried him far afield, he 
was a favorite in distant and distinguished circles of society, but 
his home town never ceased to command him; nor did he ever 
seem to lack satisfaction in giving to it the full value of his public 
training, his legal and political sagacity, and his rare talent for 
the amenities of social intercourse. 

Among the Pittsfield manufacturers upon whom once de- 
pended the welfare of the town, the foremost for a number of 
years was Theodore Pomeroy, who was born in Pittsfield, Sep- 
tember second, 1813, and died there, September twenty-sixth, 
1881. After the death of his father, Lemuel Pomeroy, in 1849, 
he assumed the management of the prosperous woolen mills of 
L. Pomeroy's Sons, on the west branch of the Housatonic. With 
him as co-heirs of this property were two younger brothers, Rob- 
ert and Edward, but neither of them had much liking for the ex- 
acting daily cares of a manufacturer, so that Theodore by their 
choice carried on the business. Eventually he became sole 
owner. 

A strongly intelligent man, Mr. Pomeroy mastered his voca- 
tion with the thoroughness of an earnest student of law or medi- 
cine, and to his theoretical knowledge he united sound commer- 
cial sense. Success seldom deserted him. His chief duty in life, 
as he conceived it, was to keep his looms at work and his wage- 



A GROUP OF TOWNSMEN «S 

earners contentedly employed, and from this task he could not 
be diverted. With the traditional Pomeroy grace of person, he 
had inherited an imperious manner from his father, that perfect 
type of village magnate, of whom a friend said that "there would 
be no living with Lemuel Pomeroy, if he were not almost always 
right." Theodore Pomeroy 's influence in the town was for so- 
briety of thought and action. His powerful hand ever strove to 
preserve an equable balance of community interests. He was, 
for an example, a constant and devout supporter of the Con- 
gregational faith; nevertheless, the Roman Catholic church of 
Pittsfield found an early temporary shelter under the roof of one 
of his buildings, and he contributed liberally to the cost of build- 
ing St. Joseph's. 

Zeno Russell was another Pittsfield woolen manufacturer 
who aided in upholding reliably the town's industrial prosperity. 
He became one of the managers in the firm of S. N. & C. Russell 
after the death of Charles L. Russell in 1870, having been for 
many years the bookkeeper in the factory's ofiSce. The son of 
Solomon L. Russell, he was born in May, 1834, and died at Pitts- 
field, November tenth, 1881. Mr. Russell was a methodical, 
thoughtful, high-principled man, and a long-time deacon of the 
First Church. 

John C. Parker, who was born in Pittsfield, February fourth, 
1822, and there died, December eighth, 1881, was prominent in 
the town as a faithful administrator of public or private trusts. 
He was elected selectman in 1867 and consecutively from 1875 
to 1880. He was a member of the well-known Parker family of 
the "West Part", and inherited exceptional aptitude and fond- 
ness for hunting and fishing. This made him more familiar 
than was any other man of his time with the topography and 
natural history of Berkshire; in these matters he was a sort of 
official village referee, as well as in local tradition and neighbor- 
hood anecdote. 

Alonzo E. Goodrich was another popular selectman of the 
town, wherein his great-grandfather, one of its early settlers, had 
been a selectman in 1793. Mr. Goodrich, a carpenter and con- 
tractor, was a sergeant in Pittsfield's Allen Guard, responding 
to the first call for troops in 1861. Born in 1815, he died at 
Pittsfield, February twenty-fifth, 1881. 



54 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

The story of the industrious and upright career of Solomon 
Lincoln Russell and of his notable services to Pittsfield has been 
gratefully and appropriately told in J. E. A. Smith's second 
volume of the chronicles of the town. To that tribute it is 
necessary here to add merely the record of Mr. Russell's death. 
It occurred at Pittsfield, January eighth, 1882. Born at Ches- 
terfield, Massachusetts, February fourth, 1791, and a resident of 
Pittsfield since 1826, he was in 1882 the town's oldest citizen; 
and the end of his honorable life deeply affected local sentiment. 

Ensign H. Kellogg, for nearly half a century a picturesque 
figure in the front rank of the town's leaders, died at Pittsfield, 
January twenty-third, 1882. He was born in the Berkshire 
town of Sheffield, in 1812, and in 1836 was graduated from 
Amherst College. In 1838 he came to Pittsfield to practice law, 
but the profession did not permanently attract him, and he 
gradually abandoned it. By his marriage in 1841 to Miss Caro- 
line Campbell, he became allied to one of the town's influential 
families. He was chosen president in 1861 of the Pontoosuc 
Woolen Manufacturing Company, and in 1866 of the Agricul- 
tural National Bank, both of which important offices he retained 
until his death. His public career may be said to have begun in 
1843, when he was first elected representative from Pittsfield to 
the General Court at Boston. Thereafter Mr. Kellogg was so 
elected in 1844, '47, '49, '50, '51, '52, '70, '71, and '76; he was 
twice speaker of the lower house; in 1853, '54, and '77, he was 
elected to the state senate from his Berkshire district. During 
the final years of his life he served under an appointment by 
President Hayes as the United States member of the interna- 
tional commission which met at Halifax to adjust disputes re- 
garding the Canadian fisheries. 

The New England of Mr. Kellogg's youth and maturity was 
fond of speech-making, and it was as a speech-maker that the 
town knew him most familiarly. His presence was distinguished, 
his voice melodious, and his courtesy unfailing. Always an ar- 
dent student of literature, he had stored his mind with poetical, 
historical, and classical allusion. His oratory and his informal 
conversation were wont to take soaring and eagle-like, but not 
aimless, flights; and he could adorn the discussion of even a 



A GROUP OF TOWNSMEN 55 

commonplace subject, such as might arise in a political caucus or 
a town meeting, with genuine eloquence. 

His circle of intimate acquaintance among the prominent 
men of the Commonwealth was very large, and it was as large 
and intimate among the people on the farms and at the looms of 
Pittsfield, for he was approachable, democratic, and, like his 
literary idol, Charles Dickens, a sympathizing appreciator of 
quaint and strongly marked human types, wherever he found 
them. He was fond, also, of the graces of life — of music and 
pictures. By minor social conventionalities he was often amus- 
ingly unfettered. When he desired to fish a favorite trout 
stream, or to devote twenty-four successive hours to a favorite 
novel, he was not ordinarily to be prevented, and on the former 
Dickinson farm in the northeastern part of the town, a broad 
tract of pasture and woodland purchased and by him named 
"Morningside", he built a miniature Swiss chalet, where he could, 
when he wished, seclude himself from over-importunate men of 
affairs. 

The benign influence which he had upon Pittsfield was due to 
his personality, to the trust of the people in his knowledge, right 
feeling, and integrity, rather than to sustained exertion of his 
brilliant powers. Mr. Kellogg's political friends, and indeed 
he had in Berkshire few political enemies, were accustomed to 
complain because he seemed to content himself, so far as effort 
on his own part was concerned, with political offices lower than 
the highest in the gift of the Commonwealth, But his tempei'a- 
ment, if one may here apply a modernly abused term, was es- 
sentially artistic, and it shaped his life in its own way, among 
his books and his neighbors. 

George P. Briggs was the oldest son of Governor George 
Nixon Briggs and was born at Adams, March fourth, 1822. 
He died at Pittsfield, March twenty-sixth, 1882. Mr. Briggs 
was a graduate of Williams and was a member of the Berkshire 
bar, but after the death of his father he turned to agriculture 
and conducted the Governor's cherished farm on West Street. 
He was, like his father, a valued supporter of the Baptist Church. 
His nature was gentle, scholarly, and companionable, and among 



56 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

his Pittsfield contemporaries, by whom he was much beloved, 
he was noted for the breadth and quality of his information. 

The career and character of Edwin Clapp were exhibitive 
of those sterling qualities of citizenship which made the village 
of Pittsfield self-reliant. His lifelong industry was devoted to 
only one business, and his practical public spirit to only one 
community. He was born on May first, 1809, in Pittsfield, where 
he died, July twenty-seventh, 1884. His father, Jason Clapp, 
was a famous builder of coaches and carriages; his large shop 
was on the present Clapp Avenue, and there Edwin Clapp labor- 
ed contentedly, honorably, and successfully for more than half a 
century. He filled, with faithfulness and hard-headed common 
sense, many positions of financial responsibility; and his almost 
constant service on the town's special committees testifies to 
the popular estimate of the value of his homely wisdom. With 
the fire department he was intimately identified, for he was 
elected foreman of one of the volunteer engine companies every 
year from 1846 to 1883. He was stalwartly independent in 
speech and judgment, and contemptuous of pretension. 

Mr. Clapp's shrewd mind was able thoroughly and quickly 
to appreciate the value to the community of the Berkshire 
Athenaeum. He was one of the incorporators named in the 
charter of that institution, and he continued as long as he lived 
to advance its interests with patient and unselfish effort. By 
the will of Phineas Allen, under which the Athenaeum was the 
residuary legatee, Mr. Clapp was designated a trustee of the 
estate, and the complicated duties of the trust were performed 
by him alone and, at his own request, without compensation. 

Francis E. Kernochan, although a resident of Pittsfield for 
less than a dozen years, was long remembered by the com.munity 
with affection and esteem. He was born in the city of New 
York, December twelfth, 1840, was graduated from Yale College 
in 1861, was married in 1866 to Miss Abba Learned, daughter of 
Edward Learned of Pittsfield, and became a citizen of the town 
in 1873, having acquired an interest in the woolen mill at Bel 
Air. He died at Pittsfield, on September twenty-sixth, 1884. 
Mr. Kernochan was a man of scholarly and social refinement 
and of joyously intense application to whatever his hands were 



A GROUP OF TOWNSMEN 57 

set to do; he was twice elected to the office of town selectman at 
a time when that distinction was habitually reserved for natives 
of Berkshire. 

A factor of influence in the town's business life was Nathan 
Gallup Brown, who died at Pittsfield, October twenty-third, 
1884. He was born in Preston, Connecticut, January twenty- 
seventh, 1818; and he came to Pittsfield, as an innkeeper and 
merchant, when the railroad was built through the village. 
Mr. Brown served the town as a representative to the General 
Court during the Civil War, and the fire district as a water com- 
missioner, and did much of importance toward conserving the 
commercial interests of the community. 

The business activities of no Pittsfield man ever were wider 
in range than those of Edward Learned. He was born at Water- 
vliet, New York, February twenty-sixth, 1820, became a resident 
of Pittsfield in 1850, and there died, February nineteenth, 1886. 
He was trained in boyhood to be a surveyor, and a conspicuous 
talent for mathematics was always of advantage to him. Mr. 
Learned's first important enterprises were those of a contractor 
for structural work and material for public buildings, principally 
custom houses, in different parts of the country, and as early as 
1852 he was a prominent capitalist in Pittsfield, and interested 
financially there in woolen manufacturing. During the years 
immediately succeeding the Civil War his fortunes prospered 
rapidly. He acquired lucrative mining property in the Lake 
Superior region, and made other profitable ventures of various 
sorts. His most considerable project was to build a railroad 
connecting the Gulf of Mexico with the Gulf of Tehuantepec on 
the Pacific. This involved not only financial and engineering 
problems of great magnitude, but also the difficult diplomatic 
task of obtaining secure concessions from the Mexican govern- 
ment. Mr. Learned's resolute ability overcame many obstacles; 
nevertheless, the undertaking finally languished, and he died 
before he could revive it. He had been married in 1840 to Miss 
Caroline Stoddard of Pittsfield. 

Mr. Learned, in business affairs, was a man of large vision, 
who did not, as the village said of him, "go hunting for spar- 
rows"; but his robust, alert mind, fortified by a courageous will. 



58 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

prevented him from being a merely speculative dreamer. His 
youth had taught him the worth of perseverance and of intelli- 
gent industry, and he neither forgot the lesson nor ever failed to 
apply it. He made bold ventures, and he handled them boldly, 
but his boldness was sure to be backed by shrewd judgment and 
a remarkably comprehensive grasp of detail. 

A convincing public speaker, he was a valuable contributor 
of counsel to the conduct of the town's affairs, and he was a 
liberal contributor of money to the town's meritorious causes. 
In 1857 he was elected to represent Pittsfield in the General 
Court, and he served in 1873 and 1874 as a state senator from 
the Berkshire district. His patriotism was unswerving, and 
upon the first nomination of Abraham Lincoln for the presidency 
he is reputed to have been the earliest to telegraph pecuniary 
support to the Republican campaign. In person he was com- 
pactly framed, with a clean-cut, finely chiseled face. He was 
fond of good horses, and knew how to drive them. His fine 
home, called "Elmwood", was on Broad Street; and there he 
maintained a sumptuous hospitality. 

Samuel W. Bowerman, a lawyer eminent in Western Massa- 
chusetts, was born at North Adams, May eighth, 1820. Novem- 
ber second, 1887, he died at Pittsfield, where he had lived since 
1857, having been in 1844 graduated from Williams College. 
Berkshire juries and Berkshire public meetings soon found that 
he was a notably effective advocate, using sound, understandable 
arguments, and speaking with plain force and directness. In 
politics, having been a vigorous "war Democrat" in '61, he al- 
ways attacked narrow partisanship. His legal practice was ex- 
tensive and important; but in his later years it was not easy to 
excite his active professional interest except by cases of unusual 
complication or consequence. He invested profitably in local 
real estate, and at the time of his death owned the land and 
buildings at the corner of West and South Streets. Mr. Bower- 
man was an earnest, sagacious man, whose opinions were deemed 
authoritative by his fellow citizens. His counsel was of particu- 
lar value to St. Stephen's Church, of which he was a devout sup- 
porter. 

The position in the community attained by Owen Coogan 



A GROUP OF TOWNSMEN 59 

was a beneficial stimulation for many years to the Irishmen of 
Pittsfield. He was born in County Antrim, Ireland, in 1820, 
and about 1849 became a resident of Pittsfield, where he estab- 
lished himself in the business of a tanner, Mr. Coogan, who 
was one of the town's representatives in the state legislature, was 
an unassuming, reliable, and respected agent of much good in 
civic life, and a mainstay of his church, St. Joseph's, in its strug- 
gling pioneer days; and among his fellow countrymen, when 
they constituted more than half of the foreign-born population of 
the town, the influence of his strong, upright character was es- 
pecially salutary. On December eleventh, 1887, he died at 
Pittsfield. 

A successful and respected Pittsfield farmer of the old-fash- 
ioned type was Chauncey Goodrich, who had been trained in his 
vocation when agriculture was the town's chief reliance. He 
was born in Pittsfield, December third, 1797, and died there, 
April twenty-ninth, 1887. For eleven years he was a selectman, 
and his probity and good judgment were highly esteemed. 

The career in Pittsfield of Abraham Burbank was in many 
respects extraordinary. He was born in West Springfield, 
Massachusetts, June thirteenth, 1813, and came in 1832 to 
Pittsfield, where he worked as a journeyman carpenter. His 
earliest purchase of real estate was a small plot of land on Fenn 
Street; and there, utilizing whatever time he could spare from 
his regular employment, he managed to finish a house. In 1834 
he was married to Miss Julia Brown of Pittsfield. He sold his 
house, took a note in payment, and went to Michigan, where 
with his wife he spent a frontier winter in a log cabin; but the 
note proved worthless, and Mr. Burbank returned to Pittsfield 
in 1837, having for his financial capital the sum of five dollars. 
When he died, half a century later, he owned far more real estate 
of value than anybody else in town. 

The man's industry was little short of marvellous. He was 
at the same time a builder, a farmer, a hotel-keeper, a merchant, 
and a landlord of several business blocks and of scores of tene- 
ments. His physical constitution was metallic. With hammer 
and saw, or in the haying field, he did, until the day of his death, 
the work of several men. In the quantity of his building opera- 



60 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

tions, he was quite as likely to be ahead of the town's growth as 
behind it. In 1847 he built a brick block on the west side of lower 
North Street; in 1857 he bought and developed the land now 
bounded by North Street, Depot Street, Morton Place, and the 
railroad. He acquired in 1860 the tract now enclosed by Francis 
Avenue, Union Street, North Street, and Columbus Avenue. In 
the northeastern quarter of the village he opened many resi- 
dential streets, while on his broad farm, next to the high road 
to Pontoosuc, he erected houses at Springside, and the then con- 
spicuous row of angular tenements long known to the irreverent 
as "Abraham's saw-teeth". Mr. Burbank was not accustomed 
to regard architectural elegance, or even the services of an archi- 
tect, as indispensable. 

He died at Pittsfield, November twenty-third, 1887. To 
many a poor boy, compelled to face the world with bare hands, 
the story of Abraham Burbank's hardy persistence was inspirit- 
ing; nor did the village, while smiling at the countless anecdotes 
of his thrifty economies, fail to respect his courage, and to be 
thankful often for his faith in its future. Mention is made elsewhere 
of his last will, by which he purposed that the bulk of his large 
estate should ultimately provide for Pittsfield a free hospital, a 
school fund, and a public park. 

A fine example of the ready devotion with which substantial 
citizens served Pittsfield, under the town meeting system, was 
the participation of Henry Colt in the village government. 
The son of James D. Colt, he was born at Pittsfield, November 
twelfth, 1812. In 1839 he was married to Miss Elizabeth Bacon, 
daughter of the distinguished Ezekiel Bacon of Pittsfield. Mr. 
Colt's earlier life was that of a farmer, but there was a close 
connection then between Berkshire agriculture and Berkshire 
manufacturing, because of the importance to the manufacturer 
of the raising of Berkshire sheep; and Mr. Colt, a prosperous 
wool dealer, became in 1852 the first president of the Pittsfield 
Woolen Company, whose factory was on the present Wahconah 
Street, near Bel Air. In 1868 he was chosen by the legislature to 
the directorate of the Boston and Albany Railroad, and he so 
served until the end of his life. Mr. Colt died at Pittsfield, 
January sixteenth, 1888. 



A GROUP OF TOWNSMEN 61 

In the conduct of public affairs his fellow townsmen were ac- 
customed to lean often upon him, because of his safe, conserva- 
tive judgment, because he could with peculiar authority speak 
at once for the farming, the manufacturing, and the financial 
interests, and because of his ingrained and inherited loyalty to 
Pittsfield. He was a member of the General Court, and was se- 
lectman from 1852 to 1856, and again from 1861 to 1867; and 
his steadying value in the latter office was proved particularly 
during the strain and excitement of the Civil War. Mr. Colt 
seems to have been rated by his contemporaries as the reliable 
balance wheel of the community mechanism, but he was none 
the less a constantly propelling force in the welfare of the town. 

The store of William G. Backus on the corner of Bank Row 
and South Street was a sort of landmark of the older business 
center of the town for many years. Born in Pittsfield in 1813, 
Mr. Backus died there, November third, 1888. He was a dealer 
in stoves and plumbers' supplies, and was so engaged in the 
town for half a century. Mr. Backus was a member of the first 
board of engineers chosen by the fire district in 1844, and was 
dependable for the performance of duties of good citizenship. 

Robert Pomeroy impressed himself upon the social life of 
Pittsfield more picturesquely than any other man of his time. 
He was born in Pittsfield on June thirtieth, 1817, and until 1884 
lived on East Street in the ancestral homestead, which stood 
opposite the head of First Street, and has since perished. There, 
in joyous, patriarchal fashion, he was a memorable hoSt. The 
roomy old house, with its orchards and well-stocked paddocks, 
had descended to Mr. Pomeroy from his father, Lemuel Pomeroy, 
from whom also he had inherited a lucrative interest in the woolen 
mills of L. Pomeroy's Sons. He engaged his capital, too, in 
profitable manufacturing enterprises at Taconic and Bel Air; 
and in iron works at West Stockbridge. He had a Solomon-like 
fondness for doing large, lavish, and generous things. Mr. 
Pomeroy in aspect was precisely what he should have been — 
debonair, handsome, radiant of vivacious spirit. His breezy 
speech and cordial charm of manner made friends whose brilliant 
circle extended to Canada and England, and with equal solici- 
tude and hospitality he cherished his friends in his home town. 



62 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

By them, and indeed by the entire village, he was affectionately 
known as "Colonel Bob". 

His business talent was neither constructive nor patient; 
and in the besetment of financial depression he made speculative 
ventures which caused his fortunes, soon after 1876, to fall upon 
darkened days. He endured losses with equanimity and philo- 
sophical courage; and he died at Pittsfield on December twelfth, 
1889. In 1840 he had been married to Miss Mary Jenkins of 
Pittsfield. 

Edward Pomeroy, another son of the imperial Lemuel, was 
born at Pittsfield, September third, 1820, and died there, August 
second, 1889. A man of esthetic tastes, he stood in his youth 
at the anvil in his father's gun factory; but his later life was 
almost that of a recluse, spent in his garden and his library. 
Floriculture had a no more ardent or successful devotee in 
Berkshire. 

Dewitt C. Munyan, a trusted selectman and a representative 
of Pittsfield in the state legislature, was a contractor who erected 
a large share of the town's public and private buildings after 
1851, when he came with his father to Pittsfield to finish the 
construction of the medical college on South Street. Mr. Mun- 
yan was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1825, and died 
at Pittsfield, October twenty-seventh, 1889. The court house, 
the Athenaeum, the Berkshire Life Insurance Company's 
building, and the county jail are some of the products of his 
capable workmanship. 

Dr. Abner M. Smith was a well-known physician and a help- 
ful citizen of Pittsfield for thirty-three years. He was born in 
Dalton in 1819, and became in 1856 a resident of Pittsfield, 
where he died. May twenty-third, 1889. Enthusiastic in culti- 
vating fraternal relations with his professional associates, he 
was prominent in the medical societies of both the county and 
the town. Dr. Smith gave public-spirited service as a member of 
the school committee, for he was always a seeker of learning; 
and many families knew him to be a tolerant friend and a gen- 
erous counsellor. 

John T. Power was a Pittsfield manufacturer schooled among 
the traditions of those who had so successfully founded the 



A GROUP OF TOWNSMEN 63 

town's textile industry. He was born in Pittsfield, July eleventh, 
1844 and died on March sixth, 1890. Mr. Power learned his 
business under the vigorous tutelage of Theodore Pomeroy; in 
1882 he entered the partnership of Tillotson and Power, which 
operated its factory in southwestern Pittsfield. He had a 
stanch, perhaps an old-fashioned, ideal of duty to his vocation 
and to the people in his employ, and the community knew him 
for a safely and firmly fixed quantity among its younger men. 
For many years he was a trusted officer of the First Church. 



CHAPTER V 
THE CHANGE FROM TOWN TO CITY 

AT the April town meeting of 1872, John C. West, who had 
been a selectman for nineteen years, proposed to decline 
re-election; and Thomas F. Plunkett, in a speech com- 
menting on Mr. West's services to the town, suggested that the 
administration of public affairs had grown too burdensome to be 
sustained chiefly by three men, and that the time had come for 
Pittsfield to apply to the General Court for incorporation as a 
city. The suggestion was not very seriously advanced, nor was 
it at the time seriously considered; but a special town meeting, 
called in the following June, authorized, by a vote of 83 to 73, 
the appointment of a committee of five to report on the advisa- 
bility of adopting a city form of government. The members of 
the committee were George Y. Learned, James M. Barker, John 
C. West, William R. Plunkett, and George P. Briggs. Their 
labors were apparently languid. An informal report was made 
to the town meeting of April, 1873, and a motion prevailed "that 
the whole subject of the City Charter be recommitted to the 
Committee to report at the next annual meeting." After an- 
other year accordingly, the committee presented a somewhat in- 
determinate plan for the election of nine selectmen from whom 
one should be chosen "to transact all the town business", a 
method of municipal government which appears to resemble in 
some respects the modern scheme of administration through a city 
manager. The subject was recommitted. The committee then 
drafted a city charter, obtained the enactment of it by the Gen- 
eral Court in April, 1875, and was thereupon discharged by the 
town. 

In the meantime, the slender public desire for a charter had 
become still more attenuated for two reasons. One of them, al- 
ready mentioned in these pages, was the revelation of govern- 



THE CHANGE FROM TOWN TO CITY 65 

mental corruption in several great American cities, which for a 
brief period made people everywhere in the country vaguely and 
unduly distrustful of mayors and aldermen. The other reason 
was the pressure of hard times, following the financial panic of 
1873. Opposition to a change of government in Pittsfield was 
so general that the selectmen did not deem it worth while even 
to submit the charter to the voters, although the two years' 
period required for its acceptance was extended to one of four. 
The charter was modeled conservatively on the form of city 
charter then usual in the Commonwealth, and provided for the 
division of the new city into six wards, from each of which an al- 
derman and three common councilmen were to be chosen. 

From 1875 to 1885, the project of changing town to city was 
allowed to slumber peacefully, but observant men were noting 
with disquietude the altered character of the town and the fire 
district meetings, wherein were hastily decided questions becom- 
ing every year more numerous and complex. The former habit 
of patient discussion and of leisurely reference to committees 
was often infringed, while there was an increasing proportion of 
citizens unwilling or unable to spare the time necessary for in- 
telligent acquaintance with the public measures upon which they 
were to vote. The palate of the town meeting began to demand 
the spice of constant action, and the pepper of quick decision; 
those eager for what they called "fun" were in evidence more 
often than formerly; and a humorist with a loud voice and a 
broad joke was a more dangerous opponent than he had once 
been to sagacious and important action. 

The town meeting warrant of 1885 contained an article pro- 
posing the designation of a committee empowered to draft a city 
charter, and to apply to the legislature of 1886 for its enactment. 
The article caused a vigorous, sharp-witted, and dignified debate. 
Advocates of a change emphasized the need of harmonizing the 
divided and rapidly growing responsibilities of the town and the 
fire district, the discrepancy between the increasing size of the 
town meeting's appropriations and the time available for consid- 
ering them, and the stiff argument of the census. In reply, 
Pittsfield's traditional and deeply rooted repugnance to the dele- 
gation of authority found forcible expression, as, for example, in 



66 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

an earnest speech by Samuel W. Bowerman, who declared that, 
so far as the argument of the census was concerned, he should 
rather vote to build a new town hall seating five thousand people 
than vote to surrender the present right of every citizen to en- 
gage actively in the afifairs of the town. Other influential and 
effective speakers maintained that local legislation through dele- 
gates would be intolerable, that the town was not beyond "the 
government in open meeting of men of brains and virtue", and 
that all which could be gained by a city charter would be costly 
municipal machinery "and a dozen fat aldermen". 

The powerful opposition, however, finally consented, with 
only a few negative votes, to the appointment of a committee of 
reference. This included in its membership of twenty-five the 
most prominent of those both in favor and in disapproval of a 
city form of government; and upon it were Abraham Burbank, 
Thomas Barber, S. W. Bowerman, J. M. Barker, Joseph Tucker, 
Jacob Gimlich, William Turtle, E. D. Jones, Redmond Welch, 
J. Dwight Francis, W. M. Mercer, S. N. Russell, Henry Noble, 
D. C. Munyan, J. F. Van Deusen, J. M. Stevenson, W. R. 
Plunkett, A. J. Waterman, J. L. Peck, James W. Hull, C. W. 
Kellogg, Thomas A. Oman, Laforest Logan, Harvey Henry, 
and W. W. Whiting. 

Of this committee's deliberations the result was the drafting 
of a charter which the legislature declined to grant. Its salient 
feature was the provision of a city council of a single board, to 
consist of seventeen aldermen, of whom three were to be elected 
at large. The city of Waltham had obtained a similar charter. 
The legislative powers at Boston in 1886, however, were not con- 
vinced that, in the case of Pittsfield, the Waltham form of charter 
was expedient and just; and the local proponents of the change 
from town to city made no immediate attempt toward the fram- 
ing of a substitute. From the feeling displayed at the meetings 
of the general committee and at less formal discussions, they 
judged it to be unlikely that a considerable majority of the voters 
could then be obtained for the acceptance of any charter what- 
ever. The agitation developed a strong sentimental attachment 
for the old town and fire district systems, which caused their in- 
creasing difficulties and dangers to become for the moment in- 



THE CHANGE FROM TOWN TO CITY 67 

distinct. Simply because they had been habitually followed, 
people were inclined to believe that the old systems were practical. 

Nevertheless, the efforts of the committee of 1885 were by no 
means in vain. Its sub-committee on statistics compiled and 
published an elaborately informative report of the town's fi- 
nances between the years 1875 and 1885, which compelled the 
thoughtful attention of every tax-payer, large or small. No 
public document on a similar scale had ever been printed in 
Pittsfield. A defect of the town meeting government had been 
that it encouraged in the voters a tendency to consider each 
financial question as a thing apart, without estimating its rela- 
tion to the future or to the past. The sub-committee's report 
was a comprehensive study of the expenses of a decade, en bloc, 
both of the town and the fire district. Briefly summarized, it 
showed that, from 1875 to 1885, the amount chargeable to the 
administration of the dual government had been $132,979.76; 
to general expenses, $918,610.30; to permanent improvements, 
$197,929.87; and to interest payments, $243,953.87. 

That these sums must substantially increase during the next 
ten years, was perfectly patent. That their expenditure could 
with justice and economy be regulated by a town meeting form 
of government was becoming doubtful. Moreover, it was the 
investigation of this sub-committee which led indirectly to the 
disclosure of the looseness of accounting between the town and a 
former treasurer; and the fact that this irregularity could have 
existed for so long without correction was not reassuring to 
those who still believed in adhering to the town meeting. 

In 1888, the thirty-first article of the April town meeting 
warrant read as follows: "To see if the town will establish a rate 
of wages for town work". When the article was moved for con- 
sideration, it was seen at once that the meeting was in the control 
of men who already knew exactly what they wanted, and were 
determined to obtain it. Indisposed to listen to argument, and 
unwilling to reply to it, the resolute majority voted that no em- 
ployee of the town should be paid less than two dollars for a 
working day of ten hours. Critics from all classes and parties 
vainly represented that this regulation would throw out of the 
town's employment the aged and infirm who could not earn the 



68 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

wages fixed, that it would be as sensible for the meeting to award 
interest at variance with the current rate to lenders of money to 
the town, and that an individual thus conducting his private 
enterprises would be judged to be insane by the very people who 
supported the measure. The debate, if indeed it can properly be 
so called, provoked unique turbulence and acrimony, which af- 
fected, by a sort of contagion, the transaction of other business 
by the stormy meeting, where $170,000 was appropriated in the 
course of an afternoon. The result was a large and important 
accession to those who advocated a city charter. 

At about this time, too, their position was somewhat strength- 
ened by a temporarily unfortunate administration of the town's 
affairs. The selectmen, because of a slight and technical irreg- 
ularity in the drawing of jurors, had been forced publicly to de- 
fend themselves against charges of laxness, and, indeed, their 
indictment at law was sought, a proceeding which disturbed the 
town hardly the less because it proved to be abortive. 

In a special town meeting convened in September, 1888, 
a motion to apply for the third time to the legislature for a 
charter prevailed without objection; and it was noted as a good 
omen of harmonious non-partisanship that the moderator of the 
meeting, a Democrat in politics, designated as a committee for 
the purpose one Democrat and four Republicans. These were 
Joseph Tucker, Thomas Barber, John C. Crosby, Emory H. 
Nash, and H. S. Russell. By them much of the work of prepar- 
ing a city charter was delegated to Mr. Crosby, who published 
the draft in the following December. It provided for a govern- 
mental body of two boards. Nine aldermen were to be chosen, 
one from each of six wards and three at large, while the lower 
board was to be composed of fifteen common councilmen, of 
whom the number to be chosen at large was three. Every order 
of either board was to be presented to the mayor, and for its 
passage over his veto a two-thirds vote of such board was to be 
requisite, or of both boards, when concurrent action was neces- 
sary. The concurrent vote of both bodies was to elect a board 
of public works of six members. The voters of the city were to 
elect a school committee of nine, one from each ward and three at 
large. This charter was submitted to the Commonwealth's 
committee on cities. 



THE CHANGE FROM TOWN TO CITY 69 

It was now clearly apparent that Pittsfield was resolved to 
obtain a city charter of some kind. Within three years, senti- 
ment had sharply veered. The general impression seemed to be 
that a charter in almost any form was better than none at all. 
The suggestion that, at the cost of further delay, it might be wise 
to ascertain by vote of a town meeting the form of charter con- 
sonant with the wishes of the town, and to present it to the legis- 
lature with the endorsement of such a vote, was disagreeable to 
the impatient public mood. The situation was not without a 
certain menace; for the over-hurried electorate might accept 
hastily any charter offered to it by the General Court. 

In February, 1889, the legislative committee at Boston held a 
hearing in the matter of the Pittsfield charter, and there the 
principle of elections at large to the city council was attacked by 
several Pittsfield remonstrants, led by Edward T. Slocum. 
When the charter finally emerged from the committee-room, 
three months afterward, it was altered radically from the draft 
prepared in Pittsfield, and was not, in several essentials, the 
charter asked for by the town's committee. The mayor was 
closely shorn of power. No members of the city council or of 
the school committee were to be elected at large. The board of 
public works was to consist of three members. One alderman, 
two members of the common council, and two school committee- 
men were to be elected from each of seven wards. In May the 
amended charter passed the legislature, a substitute in the origi- 
nal form having been offered in the lower house by a Pittsfield 
representative, Charles M. Wilcox, and having been rejected. 
Provision was made whereby the selectmen might submit the 
charter to the voters of the town, and a majority of the ballots 
actually cast should determine its acceptance. 

This form of charter was not experimental. Having been 
devised for the city of Boston by Lemuel Shaw, the great chief 
justice, it was in successful operation in most of the cities of New 
England; and it was framed in accordance with the dual system 
of governmental checks and balances familiar to the mind of 
every American, and fortified by the examples of the bicameral 
legislative bodies of the Commonwealth and of the United States. 

The selectmen announced that they would not arrange for a 



70 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

vote on the acceptance of the charter until "after haying time"; 
and in the meantime the document was earnestly assailed and 
as earnestly defended. Opponents of elections at large to the 
city council and to the school committee had grounded their be- 
lief firmly upon the argument that such a stipulation would allow 
to the political party locally dominant more than its just power 
in the municipal government. To this it was retorted that town 
officials had always been so chosen in Pittsfield without unfair 
results. But the fact was that the old town method in general 
was now precisely what most of the people were anxious to cast 
aside. They had obviously had enough of it. Its unfitness for 
existing conditions during the past year or two had become, in 
their estimation, especially apparent. The proposed city charter 
might, or might not, be defective, but at any rate there it was, 
a concrete thing. If they declined it, no man could say how 
long a time might elapse before another would be offered to 
them, nor could any man predict, with even the slightest degree 
of certainty, that another charter would be more generally ac- 
ceptable. 

From both sides, accusations of partisan maneuvering, in 
and out of the State House, were launched without disturbing 
very much this sweeping undercurrent of public desire. Aca- 
demic discussion of the charter, pro and con, apparently excited 
only a half-hearted attention from the majority. Local men 
who now attempted to revive interest in the principle of a city 
council with a single board found it not easy to obtain an au- 
dience. The city government of Quincy, so chartered in 1888, 
had not then been tested; nor was it probable, had any lesson 
of experience been properly deducible from the workings of the 
Quincy charter in 1889, that the contemporary voters of Pitts- 
field would have considered it studiously. 

Nevertheless, a number of men addressed themselves to the 
task of defeating the adoption by the town of the proposed char- 
ter. Their chief contention was that a single legislative board 
in the city government was sufficient. According to their view, 
the establishment of two co-ordinate bodies was likely to engen- 
der ineffectiveness, jealousy, and compromises. They maintained 
that most of the existing evils, which made desirable the change 



THE CHANGE FROM TOWN TO CITY 71 

to a city, could be traced to the divided responsibility for cor- 
porate action between two co-ordinate bodies, the town and the 
fire district, and the numerous officials of each, who, having no 
common purpose, acted independently and often antagonistically; 
and they reasoned that any dual government of a small munici- 
pality was liable to similar defects. They would have simplified 
the municipal government, given more power to the mayor, and 
curtailed the duties of the board of public works, while with loyal 
affection they still clung to the principle of elections at large. 
Several of these opponents of the charter were strategically in a 
position of disadvantage. For nearly twenty years they had 
persistently advocated the change from town to city, and now, 
when for the first time the change was possible, they were as 
persistently endeavoring to postpone it. Moreover, they were 
of the Democratic party; the normal Democratic majority in 
the town was then supposed to be about three hundred; and 
every Democrat who favored city elections at large was of course 
open to the imputation of trying to entrench his party securely 
in the city council. 

It was long "after haying time" when the selectmen sub- 
mitted the charter to the decision of the people. The day chosen 
was February eleventh, 1890. At the town hall, the polls were 
open for eight hours. The majority for the charter was 146, the 
figures being 932 in favor, and 786 opposed. About one-half of 
the registered voters cast ballots. 

There had been avowed suspicion of political and partisan 
manipulation of the electorate, but analysis of the balloting 
showed that any attempts, which might have been made to 
control a party vote on the question, had been futile. Close ob- 
servers declared, without contradiction, that nearly as many 
Democrats as Republicans voted for the charter, and that a large 
number of Republicans voted against it. Because of the non- 
partisan character of the final decision, the town was disposed 
to congratulate itself. But that one-half of the voters stayed 
away from the town hall was with reason held not to be a subject 
for felicitation. It was surmised, and doubtless correctly, that 
the majority of the absentees were in accord with the majority 
of those who went to the polls, so strong and general was the 



72 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

desire for a city government. The fact remains, however, that 
the new city was incorporated under a charter which had ob- 
tained the formal approval of only a little more than one-quarter 
of the voting population. In this respect the auspices were not 
favorable, and it was a misfortune that the new form of govern- 
ment had not been able to command the recorded support of 
more of the citizens of the town. 

The city charter occasioned several somewhat perplexing 
questions of legal construction. It provided, for example, that 
it should become effective upon its acceptance; and it specified 
dates, the first Tuesday in December and the first Monday of the 
following January, for the election and the installation respec- 
tively of the members of the city government. The charter 
had been accepted in February. Pittsfield had then ceased 
technically to be a town, although eleven months must elapse 
before the inauguration of a mayor and council. The charter, 
of course, stipulated that existing town and fire district authori- 
ties should continue their functions during such an interregnum. 
But the official terms of most of the town and fire district officers 
would expire in April. Was it proper that they should continue 
in office, de facto, until January, 1891? If not, could Pittsfield, 
being no longer a town, lawfully elect town officers? With- 
out bringing this question to a direct issue, the dilemma was evad- 
ed by the re-election of the existing town and fire district 
officers at the annual April meetings in 1890. 

Pittsfield's last regular town meeting was held on Monday, 
April seventh, 1890, and appropriately at the historic town hall, 
although on the following day it was adjourned to the Coliseum 
on North Street. The moderator was Joseph Tucker. The last 
board of selectmen was composed of William F. Harrington, 
George Y. Learned, and Eugene H. Robbins; and others who 
served the town during its final year were William M. Clark, 
Thomas E. Hall, and Gilbert West as assessors, Frederick H, 
Printiss as town clerk, Edward McA. Learned as collector of 
taxes, Erwin H. Kennedy as town treasurer, and Israel F. Ches- 
ley, William M. Mercer, Rev. William W. Newton, John C. 
Crosby, Peter P. Curtin, William W. Gamwell, Harlan H. Bal- 
lard, Max Rosenthal, and Ralph B. Bard well as members of the 



THE CHANGE FROM TOWN TO CITY 73 

school committee. At the last regular meeting of the Pittsfield 
fire district, William W. Whiting presided. The last principal 
officials, who transferred the affairs of the district to the city, 
were George W. Branch, who was chief engineer of the fire de- 
partment; Michael Casey, S. N. Russell, and Gilbert West, who 
were the prudential committee; F. W. Hinsdale, Charles E. 
Merrill, and C. T. Rathbun, commissioners of main drains and 
sidewalks; and E. N. Robbins, W. R. Plunkett, and John Feeley, 
who were water commissioners. 

The board of selectmen divided the township into seven 
wards; and in the latter part of the year Pittsfield proceeded to 
consider the personal composition of its first city government. 
The importance of a worthy selection was generally recognized. 
A healthful disposition was manifested by the leaders of the 
political parties to make the first city administration as strong 
and efficient as possible; the newspapers urged the nomination 
of the most capable men who were willing to undertake the per- 
formance of official duty. In this spirit of civic patriotism was 
alleviated some of the dissatisfaction undeniably provoked by 
the acceptance of a charter in a form which did not enlist the 
approval of a large minority. 

For mayor, the Republicans in caucus nominated Andrew J. 
Waterman, and the Democrats, Charles E. Hibbard. Both of 
the candidates were lawyers of distinguished experience. Neither 
of them had ever been officially connected with the town govern- 
ment, and their supporters pressed their claims without factional 
animosity or unfairness. The election, held on December sec- 
ond, 1890, resulted in the choice of Mr. Hibbard as the first 
mayor of the city. The first aldermen were Peter P. Curtin, 
Andrew J. White, Jabez L. Peck, David A. Clary, Charles I. 
Lincoln, Edward Cain, and C. C. Wright. The councilmen 
chosen were John Churchill, David Rosenhein, John J. Bastion, 
D. C. Maclnnes, John M. Lee, George W. Smith, Edward T. 
Slocum, Joseph Foote, George T. Denny, H. W. Chapman, E. B. 
Mead, John R. Feeley, E. B. Wilson, and E. T. Lawrence. It 
is noticeable that, with a single exception, no member of the 
first city government had served in the final administration of 
the town and fire district governments. According to strict 



74 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

party lines, the Republicans on joint ballot might command a 
majority of one vote. 

The plans for the inaugural ceremonies of the new govern- 
ment were made by a committee appointed by a citizens' meet- 
ing, which named for this purpose Morris SchaflF, William L. 
Adam, Joseph Tucker, William R. Plunkett, and William W. 
Whiting. This committee increased its membership to twenty- 
five and chose Joseph Tucker to be its chairman. The place of 
the inauguration was the Academy of Music. For the occasion, 
the auditorium was decorated elaborately, but with dignity; 
portraits of men who had served the town reliably and often in 
the distant past were conspicuously displayed; and the as- 
semblage which filled the hall to overflowing in the forenoon of 
Monday, January fifth, 1891, was affected at once by its environ- 
ment. 

The suggestion from things seen, however, was not in the 
least needed to stir in the people a deep sense of the significance 
of the event which they had gathered to witness. To many 
men the passing of the town was like the inevitable departure, 
in the fullness of years and honor, of a venerated friend. The 
necessary end of the old order was charged for them with solem- 
nity and with regret. It closed definitely a chapter of their 
memories. They recalled with pride and fondness the story of 
the town of Pittsfield, of the sturdy democracy of her self- 
government, of the loyal efforts in her behalf to which she had 
been able to inspire her sons. 

The impressive inaugural proceedings in the Academy were 
characterized by earnestness and simplicity. Joseph Tucker 
presided. In appropriate recognition of the identity of the 
town and the First Parish, in their early days, Rev. J. L. Jenkins 
was selected to offer prayer. The brief speech of the chairman 
sounded a significant note of warning. "This ancient town" 
said he, in the course of his remarks, "is passing away; sorrow- 
fully we await its last moments. When they come, let us cry, 
with loud acclaim, long live the city of Pittsfield. But I beg of 
you to remember that the history of American cities is not sav- 
ory, and that only in those where all the people take a lively in- 
terest in their welfare, and resolutely keep them free from na- 
tional politics, is a such a government a blessing". 



THE CHANGE FROM TOWN TO CITY 75 

An address, long remembered by its hearers for its force and 
grace, was delivered by James M. Barker. "We are at home", 
he began, "We meet under happy auspices. We come with 
proud memories, high hopes, and with an inspiring purpose". 
The honorable record of Pittsfield was eloquently reviewed; and 
toward the conclusion of his address the speaker said: 

"We come then, as we have the right, recounting the glories 
and virtues of the town. In our homes are peace and plenty. 
In our midst have long dwelt religion and education. Here are 
thrift and industry and prosperity. Here are noble, beneficent 
institutions, well founded, well tried, doing good work. Here 
are cheer and friendliness and good manners. Here have been 
shown bright examples of patriotism, of loyalty, and of devotion 
to the welfare of man. Here, today, is a people proud of the 
past, but filled with high ambition for the future. For ourselves 
and for our successors, we demand with confident expectation 
yet more and finer things. Each proud memory, each glory won, 
each blessing of today, is but the force, which, rightly used, shall 
raise us higher, make us better, richer 

"This is the lesson of the hour — that this community, hitherto 
well ordered and governed by itself, shall henceforth be well and 
faithfully served by those to whom its government is now to be 
entrusted. That each shall bear in mind, for his inspiration and 
guidance, the fair story of the past, shall realize the priceless 
value of his trust, and in every act and thought be loyal to the 
common weal. 

"Mr. Mayor, and you, honored aldermen and councilmen 
of the new city, it is because we believe that you have accepted 
service in this spirit, and will thus perform it, that you have been 
chosen to this new government. We are willing to commemorate 
this day because of our confidence that you and your successors 
will do well. That in your care and keeping the honor and wel- 
fare of the community are safe That here shall 

ever be found a place beautiful by nature, made finer and better 
by your adornment — a people ever wiser, better, happier, more 
prosperous. 

"This lesson is impersonal. It comes not from us, nor from 
those who have deputed us. It is the voice, the plea to you and 
your successors of all those, the dead, the living, those yet to 
live, identified with this community — nor of them alone — but of 
all those fine ideas and forces which are part of that which has 
been known as Pittsfield". 

The orator, himself a frequent, capable, and loving servant 
of the old town, delivered the valedictory with quiet emotion; 



76 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

and of this there was no lack in his soberly minded and sympa- 
thetic auditors, for whom he seemed to be a spokesman rather 
than a protagonist. The oath of office to the first mayor was 
then administered by Henry W. Taft, clerk of the Superior Court. 
Mr. Hibbard's inaugural address was attuned to the same chord 
of courageous hopefulness which had vibrated throughout Judge 
Barker's farewell to the town. Said the mayor: "The record of 
the town of Pittsfield, just closed, is secure, the record of the City 
of Pittsfield is yet to be made. A record as distinguished and 
brilliant we are not justified in expecting, but a record no less 
honorable is possible, if we will but carry into the new system of 
local self-government the spirit of the old; if our public servants 
shall be animated by the same exalted purposes, the same honor- 
able ambitions, the same devotion to duty and to the best inter- 
ests of the city as were their predecessors, and if all our citizens 
shall unite in maintaining the same high standards of citizenship, 
which the fathers established and maintained." 

Then followed Mr. Hibbard's compact and perspicuous state- 
ment of municipal assets, needs, and problems; and before his 
attentive auditors left the theater one advantage, at least, of 
their new form of government had been made apparent to them. 
Under the town system, it had been nobody's particular business 
to inform all of the voters, comprehensively and with authority, 
of public concerns. The printed reports of the various inde- 
pendent officials of the town and fire district had never been an- 
nually consolidated, and often they had been fragmentary and 
ill-arranged by men inexperienced in the expressive marshaling 
of facts and figures. The oral information, given by them in 
town meeting, was customarily that merely which was elicited 
by debate or by such questions as might happen to be asked. 
The lucid inaugural address, therefore, of the first mayor opened 
the eyes of many persons; it is probable that scores of people in 
the hall had never before realized completely the full extent of 
the public activities, their interrelation, and their demands. 

The beneficial effect of the inaugural exercises upon the 
community spirit was far more profound than that usually 
produced by such ceremonies. Whether by accident or by de- 
sign, they reconciled and encouraged those who had been dis- 



THE CHANGE FROM TOWN TO CITY 77 

turbed and, in some cases, disheartened by the agitation incident 
to the acceptance of the charter and by the uncertain prospect 
of the new government. The high moral tone, which marked 
the proceedings, gratified everybody, and was rightfully deemed 
significant. Not only had sentiments of reminiscence and civic 
aspiration been adequately voiced and responsively greeted; 
but also the practical, workaday, common sense of the citizens 
had been satisfied by a business-like and comprehensive report 
of their affairs. The baptism of the city was propitious. 

It remained to add the proper note of social congratulation, 
and in the evening of the same day a public inaugural ball was 
the event at the Academy of Music. The city, through a com- 
mittee of which William G. Backus was chairman, conducted its 
first family party on a large and hospitable scale. Those who 
attended it are fond of recalling the way in which it appropriately 
blended old and new fashions of enjoyment, as if to suggest the 
merging of an ancient town and a modern municipality. The 
then modish waltz and polka alternated with the square dances 
of village times; Captain Israel C. Weller, of genial memory, was 
persuaded to call off, in rural style, the figures of a quadrille; 
supper was served at the American House across the street; 
and festivity reigned. 




CHAPTER VI 

PHASES OF THE CITY'S GROWTH 

^HE assumption by Pittsfield of the title of city had some- 
what the same subjective effect which had been exerted 
upon local pride twenty years before by the establishment 
of the town as the county seat; for it was vaguely believed by 
many good citizens in 1891, quite as it had been in 1871, that the 
possession of a more sounding title assured the possession of a 
more accelerated welfare. Indeed, if one is so fancifully minded 
as to push the analogy between the two events in another direc- 
tion, his whimsical curiosity may be rewarded. The establish- 
ment of Pittsfield as the county seat was preceded by a period of 
great prosperity, and it chanced to be followed by hard times; 
while the final years of the town were those of industrial buoy- 
ancy, and the new city was soon to be confronted by the general 
business depression throughout the country of the early nineties 
of the last century. 

Part of a paper read in Pittsfield in 1870 before the Monday 
Evening Club is here relevant. The paper was a protest against 
the idea that prosperity was attainable without effort, and 
through the decrees either of fortune or of the legislature in Bos- 
ton. "The future growth of Pittsfield", declared the writer, 
"will in a great measure depend upon the increase of those manu- 
facturing and mechanical employments not requiring much water 
power. One large factory would do more for the permanent 
prosperity of this town than our new court house." It was pre- 
cisely along these lines that the welfare of the town was develop- 
ing in 1891 ; and the possession of the title of city had little direct 
bearing upon that welfare. 

In the history of Pittsfield for the quarter-century after 1890, 
the essential fact was not its new form of government, but its 
material growth, due in chief to the development of non-textile 



PHASES OF THE CITY'S GROWTH 79 

manufacturing, and especially of the manufacturing of electrical 
appliances. The twenty-five years after 1890 saw the popula- 
tion increase from 17,252 to 39,607, and the number of dwellings 
from 2,735 to 6,022. 

This rapid rate of gain is by no means remarkable in the 
history of our younger American cities, but in the individual case 
of Pittsfield it was surprising. Pittsfield, for one hundred years 
prior to 1890, had been a thriving town, according to the New 
England standard. The civic mind had become accustomed to a 
certain easy rate of increase in population. The average rate of 
increase for each decade of the nineteenth century was about 
twenty-five per cent., although the percentage of gain was fifty- 
six between 1840 and 1850, when railroad connections were first 
established. For the decade ending in 1910, the rate of increase 
was forty -seven per cent., and larger than that of any other city 
in Massachusetts, except New Bedford. The growth of the 
property resources was even more marked and precipitate. 
The federal census authorities stated the value of the city's 
manufactured products to be $5,753,546 in 1899 and $15,215,202 
in 1909. 

If it is possible to conceive a civic mind, it is possible also to 
imagine that Pittsfield rubbed her civic eyes, habituated to gaze 
placidly at the slower and more sober thrift of a Yankee village. 

Another element of singularity in Pittsfield's abrupt growth 
lies in the fact that this growth brought suddenly into relations 
with industrial and financial centers a community which had 
long been sturdily self-reliant, if not self-satisfied. He has con- 
sidered the earlier story of Berkshire to little avail who has not 
noted the effect of the isolation of its highlands upon the moral 
and political independence of its people, from the old days when 
Parson Allen and the Pittsfield selectmen so zealously lectured 
the governor of the Commonwealth and the lawmakers at Bos- 
ton. In a not dissimilar way, nature had wrought the inde- 
pendence of the county's manufacturing enterprises. Between 
the palisades of the hills, the Berkshire mill owners had found a 
sufficient working capital in the power of the mountain streams; 
and, for nearly a century, no considerable amount of money 
from abroad had sought investment in Pittsfield. Unaffected 



80 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

by the proximity of any large commercial metropolis, the town 
had been trained to rely chiefly upon itself, to initiate its own 
plans, and to carry them forward with its own resources. About 
the year 1891, this state of things began to be altered; and the 
change was violently contrary to the long experience of an es- 
pecially self -contented community. 

It is peculiar that the industrial growth of Pittsfield at this 
period should have been accompanied by increased evidence of 
the attractive power of the place upon the vacation traveler and 
the metropolitan searcher for a summer home. Holiday-makers 
do not usually linger where factory wheels are busy. Pittsfield 
was fortunate in that its factory wheels were both busy and un- 
obtrusive. The residential portions of the city remained un- 
vexed by the clang of machinery; the beauty of its surrounding 
uplands was not disturbed; and, with the exception, to the east, 
of the Hatter's Pond of former days, its jeweled lakes retained 
their rural loveliness. The city was therefore enabled still to 
share substantially in the growth of Berkshire's popularity as a 
summer resort. In Pittsfield, however, more often than in the 
other towns of the county, the casual visitor became the perma- 
nent resident, cultivated the city's increasing opportunities of 
business, and added to the enjoyment and value of its social life. 

The number of those attracted to Berkshire by the fame of 
its highland scenery was at this time augmented by the im- 
provement of facilities of travel over its picturesque roads. 
Cars propelled by electricity through the medium of an overhead 
wire were first used in Pittsfield in 1891. A strong disagreement 
among the stockholders of the Pittsfield Street Railway Com- 
pany had so confused the affairs of the corporation that in 1890 
it was dissolved, and a new company was organized, called the 
Pittsfield Electric Street Railway Company. This corporation, 
of which Joseph Tucker was the president, acquired the plant 
of the former company, equipped the line for the use of electricity 
as motive power, and on July ninth, 1891, began to run trolley 
cars from Park Square to Pontoosuc Lake. Upon the first Sun- 
day of operation, 3,700 passengers were carried. The experiment, 
nevertheless, was regarded doubtfully by the public, because the 
cars ascended grades with difiiculty; and, at the Benedict hill. 



PHASES OF THE CITY'S GROWTH 81 

near Pontoosuc, they often declined to ascend at all. Horse- 
drawn cars were not immediately abandoned by the managers 
of the enterprise. Naturally enough, the lay opinion was that 
trolley cars, however practicable they might be on city streets or 
in a level country, could never prove to be of much utility among 
the hills of Berkshire. 

In 1892, a large part of the stock of the company was pur- 
chased by Patrick H. and Peter C. Dolan, who came to Pittsfield 
from New Britain, Connecticut, and assumed the active direction 
of the road. Within eleven years from 1893, the line was ex- 
tended east to Dalton and Hinsdale, south to the foot of South 
Mountain, west to West Pittsfield, northwest to Lake Avenue, 
and north to Cheshire. The Berkshire Street Railway Company, 
an energetic and resourceful corporation keenly promoted by 
Ralph D. Gillett of Westfield, and supported by several local 
shareholders, began in 1902 to operate a line north and south 
through the county, which traversed the eastern part of Pittsfield 
and connected with the business center through East Street. 
In 1915, there were twenty-five miles of trolley car tracks within 
the city limits. In 1910, the capital stock of the older corpora- 
tion was sold to a holding company, and the control of both 
roads passed to the New York, New Haven and Hartford Rail- 
road Company. 

The builders of these lines and extensions met, especially 
from the residents on South and East Streets, the lively opposi- 
tion which at that time was usual in similar cases the country 
over; and they accomplished for the community the benefit as 
usual and inevitable. Less ordinary in its results was the local 
rivalry between the two railway companies, in which the general 
public participated to an exceptional degree, so that ill-considered 
charges flew wildly back and forth. The rancor of the so-called 
"trolley war" disturbed Pittsfield for several years; and the 
final absorption of the roads by one management was welcomed 
by many pacific citizens. 

The wide vogue of the automobile, which began to prevail 
in the United States during the first decade of the century, was 
also a factor of no slight importance in the growth and prosperity 
of Pittsfield at that time. The county of Berkshire became a 



82 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

favorite touring district for motor cars. The travelers by auto- 
mobile, of whom 90,000 were roughly estimated in 1915 to have 
visited Pittsfield from April to November, not only profited the 
local merchants and the local hotel-keepers, but made both the 
social and commercial atmosphere of the city more cosmopolitan. 
It happened fortunately that the public accommodations of the 
city were already prepared to take care of this benevolent inva- 
sion. In this instance Pittsfield was forehanded. Its equip- 
ment of hotels had been made, for the first time in many years, 
thoroughly adequate. The Maplewood had been enlarged. 
The American House was replaced by a new hotel bearing the 
same name in 1899; and in the previous year Samuel W. Bower- 
man, son of the former owner of the property, razed the ancient 
building on the corner of South and West Streets, and erected 
and opened the Hotel Wendell. 

On the other hand, the city was by no means prepared for 
the housing of its increased permanent population between 1900 
and 1910; and this matter soon assumed the proportions of a 
serious problem. Local owners of residential real estate were 
accustomed to move with deliberation. A "land boom" was 
not within their experience, and they regarded symptoms of it 
warily. The expansion of dwelling facilities did not for several 
years keep pace with the need for them. Outside capital, here 
as elsewhere, seized its legitimate opportunity. In 1905 the 
scarcity of tenements first became noticeable. The building 
development thereafter was chiefly toward the northeast, where, 
in the wooded Morningside section, the occupancy of house lots 
had begun markedly to increase about 1895. 

The city's annual building record, inclusive of the cost of 
buildings for all purposes, first touched one million dollars in 
1906. Four years later, it more than doubled that amount. 

A considerable part of this expenditure was due to the erec- 
tion of the great factories, north and east of Silver Lake, of the 
General Electric Company of Schenectady, New York, which 
in 1903 purchased the stock and plant of the Stanley Electric 
Manufacturing Company. To narrate with detail the extraor- 
dinary development of this enterprise is not within the province 
of the present chapter; nevertheless, no account, not even a 



PHASES OF THE CITY'S GROWTH 83 

general one, of the first quarter-century of the city's existence 
can well be attempted, or understood, without some account 
also of the company's existence, so important was their interre- 
lation and so curiously coincident in point of time were their 
beginnings. The city of Pittsfield began its course in January, 
1891, and in the following April the Stanley Company made its 
first shipment of machinery. 

Sixteen hands were then employed in the manufacture of 
electrical transformers on Clapp Avenue. Twenty years later, 
the establishment initiated by William Stanley employed over 
5,000 people, and its shops, in the vicinity of Silver Lake and 
Morningside, covered fifty acres. Not only did the early pros- 
perity of the company augment the material welfare of Pittsfield, 
but also it was of a nature to energize unusually the popular 
spirit. It represented an industry which was at the time novel 
and strange, and of which the mysterious possibilities defied calcu- 
lation. Few cities in the world, between 1890 and 1895, possessed 
a manufactory of the same sort. Its very presence in Pitts- 
field seemed to signify that the community was awake, expansive, 
ultra-modern. The daily evidence of its early success kindled 
optimism regarding the future of the city as a whole. 

With a few exceptions, the incorporators and original share- 
holders of the Stanley Company were Pittsfield men, who put 
their money into the modest venture of 1890 rather because of 
public spirit than because of expectation of large profits. Upon 
its successive directorates, during the first decade of its develop- 
ment, were Charles Atwater, William R. Plunkett, Walter F, 
Hawkins, George H. Tucker, WiUiam Stanley, Charles E. Hib- 
bard, Henry Hine, George W. Bailey, W. A. Whittlesey, Henry 
C. Clark, and William W. Gamwell. The active supervision of 
its finances and commercial relations was consigned to Mr. Gam- 
well, who was chosen president after Mr. Atwater resigned in 
1893. Mr. Gamwell served at times as treasurer, and Mr. Bailey 
and Mr. Whittlesey also held the same position. The financial 
guidance of the company, between 1890 and 1900, being thus 
mainly in the hands of Pittsfield citizens, its immediate success 
peculiarly gratified local sentiment; and Pittsfield's self-confi- 
dence was stimulated by the fact that the community, through 



84 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

its own business men, was able to take such profitable advantage 
of an industrial field then new and commercially hazardous. 

Moreover, in attempting an estimate of the early value to 
the city of the Stanley Company, it must not be forgotten that 
the character and circumstances of the enterprise attracted to 
Pittsfield, as residents, men of especial mental alertness and 
breadth of mental vision. They widened the social, as well as 
the industrial, horizon of the city. The mechanics and laborers 
in the shops were necessarily intelligent as well as active. The 
company's powerful and more wealthy rivals enforced at head- 
quarters a general management of especially vigilant and far- 
sighted shrewdness. Apart from the company proper, the 
brilliant and ambitious electricians, who worked with Mr. Stan- 
ley in his laboratory, typified a high grade of scientific talent in 
their young profession. Indeed, the zest and venturesome energy 
of youth seemed to inspire the entire undertaking. William 
Stanley, whose tireless inventive genius leavened it, was only 
thirty-two years old at the date of its inception. 

The most conspicuous effect which textile manufacturing 
had at this period upon the growth of Pittsfield was accomplished 
through the development of the mills of the W. E. Tillotson 
Manufacturing Company near Silver Lake. After 1901 their 
capacity was so increased that eventually the operations of 
weaving, spinning, and knitting, gave employment to about 600 
people. Leaving aside the Stanley Electric Manufacturing 
Company, non-textile manufacturers contributed to the city's 
gain notably through the medium of the Eaton, Crane, and Pike 
Company's activities. This establishment, a manufactory of 
stationery, began its unusually successful career in Pittsfield in 
1893, then employing thirty operatives. In 1915, more than 
1,000 operatives were employed in the large and busy shops 
extended from the building formerly occupied by the Terry 
Clock Company on South Church Street, with two auxiliary 
plants. 

These industrial factors of growth, combined with others of 
less magnitude but of no less energy, produced in the Pittsfield 
of 1891 to 1916 a general state of domestic effort, almost of 
strain. To keep pace with this expansion taxed the energies, the 



PHASES OF THE CITY'S GROWTH 85 

capital, and the character of the city. In this respect Pittsfield 
singularly reflected the condition of the Republic during the 
same era, an era wherein the capability of its self-government, 
and of its financial, educational, and social systems, was tried 
severely by the growth of industry and population. It is quite 
possible to find in the experience of Pittsfield at this period 
many of the same problems of readjustment, in miniature, 
which confronted the United States; and one may observe an 
illustration of the familiar fact that often the history of an indi- 
vidual community closely exemplifies the history of the nation, of 
which it is a diminutive part. 

The number of the financial institutions in the city was re- 
inforced in 1895 by the establishment of the Berkshire Loan and 
Trust Company, under the presidency of Franklin K. Paddock, 
and in 1893 by the chartering of the City Savings Bank, of which 
the president was Francis W. Rockwell. Two co-operative 
banks were initiated, the Pittsfield in 1889, and the Union in 
1911. In their various lines of service, these institutions pros- 
pered, while at the same time the sound prosperity was 
strengthened of the national banks, the Agricultural, the Pitts- 
field, and the Third, and of the Berkshire County Savings Bank. 
By the last named, the city's first ofiice building on a modern 
scale was erected in 1894, at the corner of North Street and 
Park Square. 

This building, which necessitated the disappearance of 
West's block, brought about the earliest change in the appearance 
of the older business center during the period which we are now 
surveying. Other noteworthy changes on North Street were 
effected by the construction in 1908 of the Agricultural Bank 
building, between Dunham and Fenn Streets; by the burning 
of the Academy of Music in 1912 and the erection on its site of 
the Miller building; and by the destruction by fire of the ancient 
Callender block on the west side of lower North Street in 1914. 
The advance of business structures north of the railroad bridge 
was constant and substantial. In 1915, North Street presented 
an unbroken front of blocks on the east side as far as St. Joseph's 
Convent, and on the west to Bradford Street, while north of 
these points on the main thoroughfare, as well as on the northerly 



86 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

cross streets, and at Morningside, were many buildings devoted 
to mercantile purposes. Not until 1900, however, did upper 
North Street lose its most obvious relic of village days, a rural 
blacksmith's shop, which stood at the head of Wahconah Street 
on a portion of the grounds now occupied by the House of Mercy 
hospital. 

The strain of the city's growth was felt with acuteness by all 
of its charitable enterprises, and especially by the House of 
Mercy. In 1890 the number of charity and pay patients cared 
for in the hospital was 156, in 1915 it was 2,213. In 1901, the 
growth of the institution was signalized by the erection of a 
spacious main building in the triangle bounded by North and 
Wahconah Streets, and Russell Terrace. Again, in 1908, the 
establishment of Hillcrest Hospital, at the corner of North 
Street and Springside Avenue, added substantially to the equip- 
ment of the community for the performance of charitable hospital 
work. 

Altruistic spirit found expression also during this period in 
the beginning of the work of the Visiting Nurses' Association, 
the Anti-tuberculosis Association, and the Day Nursery Associa- 
tion. The last was organized by Pittsfield women in 1905, for 
the purpose of providing a place where busy mothers, during 
their working hours, might have little children cared for. Its 
first president was Mrs. William H. Eaton. The Visiting Nurses' 
Association, designed to supply the services of a trained nurse 
to the destitute sick in their homes, was instituted in 1908, under 
the presidency of DeWitt Bruce. The Pittsfield Anti-tuberculosis 
Association, of which the first official head was Dr. J. F. A. 
Adams, was formed also in 1908, and soon thereafter acquired a 
farm in the western part of the city, where a sanitorium was es- 
tablished for the treatment of patients afflicted by consumption. 
The Associated Charities, organized in 1911 with Arthur N. 
Cooley as president, became the central, supervising, and assist- 
ing agency of these and other benevolent activities, and in 1915 
absorbed the Union for Home Work, and assumed the charitable 
functions of that organization. 

It is to be observed that, during the first twenty-five years of 
Pittsfield's existence as a city, its people not only sustained and 



PHASES OF THE CITY'S GROWTH 87 

developed the philanthropic institutions inherited from earlier 
days, but also were generally responsive to new and growing 
needs. 

In fact, the field of service of almost every public institution 
in the city was broadened so rapidly and so imperatively during 
these years that its managers were seldom out of danger of find- 
ing its resources inadequate. Almost every public and semi- 
public institution in the city was conducted under an abnormal, 
although legitimate, pressure of popular demand. At the public 
library of the Berkshire Athenaeum, for an instance, the annual 
issue of books advanced from 30,000 to 100,000. Those who 
founded the Athenaeum and endowed it in 1875 could not have 
contemplated growth of service on this scale; and the city, follow- 
ing properly the fine example of the town, sustained a large por- 
tion of the burden of the current expenses of the institution by a 
yearly grant from the harassed municipal treasury. 

A similar condition of laborious endeavor to meet demand 
was evident about this time among such agencies for good as the 
Young Men's Christian Association and the Father Mathew 
Total Abstinence Society. The latter, organized in 1874 by the 
men of St. Joseph's Church, found its opportunities so extended 
in 1911 that a building seemed necessary for its beneficent work. 
In that year, $47,000 was raised by an enthusiastic popular sub- 
scription; and the building was erected on Melville Street. 
The Young Men's Christian Association was established in 
Pittsfield in 1885. In 1908 the need of a building for it was so 
generally recognized that the public readily contributed $44,000, 
and this, added to a large fund gathered already by the associa- 
tion, made possible the erection of a building on the corner of 
Melville and North Streets. 

The sphere of possible usefulness of the Boys' Club and its 
vocational schools, modestly initiated in 1900, became enlarged 
so obviously in 1905 that the wise munificence of Zenas Crane 
of Dalton provided a building on Melville Street for the club. 
A building also was generously assured for the Business Women's 
and the Working Girls' Clubs at the corner of East and First 
Streets in 1915, when it had grown apparent that the demand 



88 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

for the benefits derivable from those organizations was in urgent 
excess of the supply, which their former facilities afforded. 

The provision of public playgrounds within the thickly set- 
tled portion of the city began in 1910. In the next year, a com- 
mittee, appointed by the mayor, formed the Park and Play- 
ground Association, of which the declared object was "the pro- 
motion of the establishment, acquisition, maintenance, and im- 
provement of parks and playgrounds for the people of Pittsfield." 
The association's first president was Joseph Ward Lewis, and 
the land first bought for its use in 1911 was north of Columbus 
Avenue, immediately west of the river. The attendance at the 
public playgrounds in 1915 was about 90,000. 

In connection with the development, between 1891 and 1916, 
of these and kindred activities in Pittsfield, one observes that 
here again the life of the city reflected with fidelity the life of the 
nation. The period was one of social organization, when forces 
working for social betterment began to become combined, and 
subjected to unified and skilled direction. Of this tendency the 
social history of Pittsfield presents clear evidence; and, if one 
views in sum all the various endeavors toward mutual help and 
the common good, he will find that they represent a very con- 
siderable part of the domestic life of the community. 

The city's churches, of whose philanthropic ideal such agen- 
cies were, to some degree, the practical expression, responded to 
the impetus of the city's growth. New edifices were dedicated 
by Unity Church, in 1890; by Advent Church, in 1891; by the 
Evangelical Lutheran Church, in 1893; by Notre Dame Church, 
in 1897; by Pilgrim Memorial Church, in the following year; by 
St. Charles' Church, in 1901; and by the Morningside Baptist 
Society, in 1913. First Church of Christ, Scientist, occupied its 
own building in 1907. The Gathering of Israel erected a new 
synagogue in 1906. The building on Linden Street used by the 
Epworth Mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church was re- 
modeled in 1906; and in 1913 a chapel was erected on Elm 
Street by the First Baptist Church. The activities, in short, of 
every religious denomination in Pittsfield were increased. St. 
Joseph's Convent was opened in 1897. The St. Joseph's pa- 
rochial schools were established in 1899, 



PHASES OF THE CITY'S GROWTH 89 

By the public schools of Pittsfield, the strain of expansion 
was felt with trying rigor. The enrolment of pupils was approx- 
imately doubled in the fifteen years following 1900. The fact 
that the city was growing rapidly was thus emphasized in the 
experience even of the children, and the constant endeavor of 
the community to adjust itself to this growth was brought home 
to every household. Unlike previous generations in the normally 
progressive town, Pittsfield boys and girls now became men and 
women among surroundings abnormally changeful, and in an 
atmosphere charged with a constant effort to make the supply of 
free public education equal to the demand for it. The city, 
wherein the building and enlargement of schoolhouses were an- 
nual necessities for several years, and wherein overcrowded 
schoolhouses were not unusual, was by these witnesses made 
forcibly aware of the need of effort beyond the ordinary. 

Strain and growth in a community sometimes produce a 
certain disintegration. Against this tendency, in the case of 
Pittsfield, has often worked a strong impulse summoning the en- 
deavor of all the citizens to attain some object for the direct 
benefit of comparatively a few. Instances of this are the popu- 
lar subscriptions, to which allusion has been made, for the build- 
ing funds of the Young Men's Christian Association and the 
Father Mathew Total Abstinence Society. An increased co- 
operation for such ends deserves to be noted by the reader inter- 
ested in American social life at the dawn of the twentieth cen- 
tury. It was a characteristic feature of the period in Pittsfield. 
When money was to be raised for a worthy object, the campaign, 
as it was called, was elaborately organized and a studious at- 
tempt was made to enlist in the ranks every member of the entire 
community, who had any means of contribution. Such a cam- 
paign, with its numerous participants and daily meetings, fre- 
quently resulted not only in the subscription of a fund; it also 
operated to unify the social body and to bring together men and 
women of various sorts in the friendly pursuance of a common 
purpose. Social co-operation of this kind was not a new thing in 
Pittsfield, but the scale on which it was practiced after 1900 in- 
troduced a distinct and novel phase of the city's growth. 

Hardly so evident was co-operation in industrial and mercan- 



90 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

tile affairs. A Board of Trade and a Merchants' Association 
each exerted somewhat spasmodic influence. The former, about 
1910, seemed to have been placed on a more practical and perma- 
nent basis than it had previously enjoyed, but in general the 
business men of Pittsfield may be said to have shown an odd 
jealousy of oflScial organization, an inheritance, perhaps, from 
the stubborn Yankee individualism of village times. Concerted 
action in matters of commerce has ordinarily been difficult of at- 
tainment; evoked now and then by extraordinary emergencies, 
it ceased to be operative when the particular need for it had 
passed. A conspicuous, and in its purpose the most important, 
effort to awaken co-operation of this character was made in 
1900, when there was apprehension that the shops of the Stanley 
Electric Manufacturing Company might be removed from 
Pittsfield. A public meeting was held, which was attended by 
three hundred influential citizens and over which the mayor pre- 
sided; to confer with the new management of the company a 
committee was selected, consisting of William E. Tillotson, 
Henry R. Peirson, Frank W. Dutton, James W. Hull, William A. 
Whittlesey, and George W, Bailey, and was instructed "to ar- 
range for some concerted plan of action whereby the require- 
ments of the company may be fully met by the business men of 
Pittsfield". The committee labored with zeal and determina- 
tion, and on March twenty-ninth, 1900, the announcement was 
made by the new president of the company, Dr. F. A. C. Perrine, 
that the factories would remain in the city. Flags were hoisted, 
bells rung, and mill whistles blown; and Pittsfield congratulated 
itself, as well it might. The success of this meeting of 1900 
affected not only the city's material prosperity, but also the 
civic spirit, which it enlivened and at least momentarily welded, 
from elements then threatening to become more diverse than 
they had ever been before. 

It is commonly supposed that when a manufacturing town or 
city in America grows rapidly, its population is likely to become 
less and less homogeneous. For striking evidence of this in 
Pittsfield's case, one searches the figures of the census in vain. 
In 1875 one resident in every four had been born in a foreign 
country; in 1910 this ratio was one in every five. Authorized 



PHASES OF THE CITY'S GROWTH 91 

statistics of a later census are not yet available. Of the 3,029 
foreign-born inhabitants in 1875, fifty -four per cent, were of 
Irish birth. In 1910 the white foreign-born, among the city's 
total population of 32,121, numbered 6,744, of whom 1,629 had 
been born in Ireland, or less than one-half of the percentage of 
1875. Next in numerical importance, in 1910, came the foreign- 
born Italians, with a census of 1,158; and thereafter followed 
the French-Canadians with 765, the Germans with 623, and the 
Russians with 580. 

Actual homogeneity of population, however, cannot depend 
entirely upon facts revealed by census figures. From Pittsfield, 
when its democratic town and fire district meetings were abolish- 
ed, when an absentee corporation became its principal industrial 
reliance, when its social life assumed of necessity a character less 
leisurely and simple, there escaped undeniably a portion of the 
neighborly village spirit, whether valuable or not, which once 
tended to unify its people. Taking the place of this, it may be, 
was the insistent need of concerted endeavors, some of which 
have been suggested, to sustain the manifold burden imposed 
by the rapid growth of the city; it is difficult to find a record of a 
public meeting assembled to consider a matter of local interest 
between 1900 and 1910, or a newspaper editorial dealing with 
important local affairs, wherein this need is not implied or ex- 
plicitly urged; and the community was in small danger of being 
self-complacent. In this indirect sense, the rapidity of the city's 
growth compelled co-operation, discouraged faction, and united 
public effort. 

The esthetic and intellectual forces at work in Pittsfield during 
these years exhibited the same trend toward organization that 
was seen in the fields of philanthropy, of industry, and even of 
social amusement. The group seemed to be supplanting the in- 
dividual; and the period was characterized by the formation of 
almost countless "home study" and "home travel" clubs, "read- 
ing clubs", and other small associations, which met to discuss 
papers written by members, or to listen to an address by a visitor. 
Of the latter sort, the most important numerically was the 
Wednesday Morning Club of women, established in 1879, and in 
1915 composed of about three hundred members. The sub- 



92 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

jects which engaged the attention of such organizations are in 
many instances recorded; and in so far as the record reveals the 
intellectual interests of the community, it indicates that they 
were animated and catholic, and that the traditional Yankee 
fondness for speculative philosophy was disappearing. 

The most powerful single stimulus applied to these interests, 
since the foundation of the Berkshire Athenaeum, was the gift 
to the people of Berkshire, by Zenas Crane of Dalton, of the 
Museum of Natural History and Art. The building on South 
Street was dedicated on April first, 1903. The great and perma- 
nent importance of the institution seems not to have been under- 
estimated even during its earlier years ; and the fine effects of the 
Museum upon the higher aspirations of the public apparently 
were perceived with a correct vision upon the day of its dedica- 
tion. A thoughtful and general use of the collections and art 
galleries in the Museum began almost immediately. 

It is believable that Pittsfield, among the many American 
towns favored by benefactions like the Museum and the Athe- 
naeum, was peculiarly fortunate in the periods of community 
development at which the gifts were received. They each came 
at a time when, in this country, the incitation of the liberalizing 
influences of art and literature was especially salutary. Thomas 
Allen gave to Pittsfield the Athenaeum building in 1876. It was 
a period when the light of chivalry and idealism, which had glori- 
fied the Civil War, was fading in New England, and when her 
people, intent upon the support of industries and the readjust- 
ment of political affairs, were strongly inclined toward the over- 
valuation of things material. This tendency in Pittsfield was 
then opposed by whatever force may be exerted through a public 
art gallery and a large free library. Again, in 1903, when Zenas 
Crane's generosity gladdened Pittsfield, the time seems to have 
been singularly appropriate for attempting to stem a local wave 
of materialism, and for inviting, with renewed emphasis, the 
busy people of a rapidly growing and prosperous city to a con- 
templation of the quiet beauties of art and nature. 



CHAPTER VII 
A MISCELLANY OF CITY LIFE 

THE annual cattle show and fair of the Berkshire Agricul- 
tural Society continued to be .the most enlivening popular 
festival of the year until the middle nineties of the last 
century. In 1892, the fair was honored by a visit from the 
governor of the Commonwealth, William E. Russell. The 
grounds on Wahconah Street were thronged, and the exhibits, 
then and for several years thereafter, encouraged the officers of 
the society to believe that, although the proportion of the farmers 
in the central part of the county was dwindling, the prosperity 
of the organization might be maintained. They reminded them- 
selves that the purpose for which their society was incorporated, 
in 1811, included the promotion of manufactures, as well as of 
agriculture; and they made determined attempts both to broad- 
en the field of exhibits and to add the quality of popular enter- 
tainment to the fairs. 

The venerable society, however, was not so constituted as to 
be adapted to the management of shows of a composite and 
spectacular variety. For such a purpose, its somewhat elaborate 
scheme of organization, with all its membership privileges and 
its various committees, seemed unwieldy. When the rural flavor 
of a village cattle show no longer spiced the Pittsfield fairs, the 
society found that it was ill-fitted to provide more modern sub- 
stitutes. Attendance languished. The more conservative mem- 
bers shuddered at the accumulation of debt, and disclaimed in- 
tention of risking money "in the circus business". Moreover 
they were led to doubt the present real value to the community 
of the original functions of the society. The promotion of local 
agriculture, as a means of livelihood, was now important only to 
a small minority of the people of central Berkshire, while the 
promotion of manufactures appeared amply capable of looking 



94 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

out for itself; and the former object might be pursued by the 
state board of agriculture and by the active farmers' granges 
more effectively, perhaps, than by a society whose members, 
scattered in a dozen towns, met only once a year. 

Under these circumstances, the directors of the society ap- 
pointed a special committee to report a plan of reorganization in 
1901. The fair of that year had resulted in a financial loss, and 
the liabilities of the society, including a mortgage on its real es- 
tate, were announced to be about $10,000, which its assets ex- 
ceeded. The directors, upon the report of the special committee, 
recommended that "the society vote to authorize the president 
and treasurer to sell its property, subject to the approval of the 
state board of agriculture, for a sum not less than the liabilities 
of the society, such sale to be made, if possible, to a company 
organized for the purpose of conducting an agricultural fair at 
Pittsfield". The society so voted, at a special meeting on Janu- 
ary seventh, 1902. Endeavors failed to organize a conducting 
company; the property was sold to private parties; and the 
Berkshire Agricultural Society ceased to exist. The final oflScers 
were Dr. H. P. Jaques of Lenox, president, A. E. Malcolm of 
Pittsfield, treasurer, and J. Ward Lewis of Pittsfield, secretary. 

The enthusiastic spirit of the society's founder, Elkanah 
Watson, would have been delighted by the quality of the stock 
raised on Pittsfield farms between 1890 and 1915, although the 
quantity of farming had so greatly declined. The farms, at va- 
rious times within this period, of William F. Milton, Henry C. 
Valentine, Col. Walter Cutting, John A, Spoor, and Arthur N. 
Cooley were notable examples of scientific method. Most con- 
spicuous among similar enterprises was the raising of horses at 
Allen Farm on the road to Dalton. There W. Russell Allen 
began to breed trotting horses in 1888. In 1892, Mr. Allen's 
"Kremlin" established a world's record for five-year-old trotting 
stallions, and the Allen Farm stock continued annually to de- 
serve and obtain a reputation among horsemen as high as that 
achieved by the trotting horses of any breeding farm in the 
United States. 

In the southwestern part of the city, the Pittsfield colony of 
Shakers, who were the most scientific and progressive farmers in 



A MISCELLANY OF CITY LIFE 95 

the country a century ago, maintained itself in worldly pros- 
perity, despite a constant decrease in number. By the death of 
Ira Lawson, in 1905, the Pittsfield Shakers lost an especially im- 
portant agency for their material welfare. Many years had 
then elapsed since these thrifty, intelligent, and respectable 
people, with their picturesque garb and quaint speech, had been 
figures of almost daily familiarity in the town. Since 1800, the 
disciples of Mother Ann Lee had been not only a distinctive 
feature of Pittsfield life, but also, in many ways, a helpful portion 
of the community, and their gradual disappearance was one of 
the changes which marked the end of village days. 

Many of these changes were pictured effectively by Henry L. 
Dawes, in an informal address which he made at a public recep- 
tion in Pittsfield in 1893. The occasion was the home-coming of 
Mr. Dawes after his retirement from the national Senate; he 
had represented Massachusetts as congressman and senator at 
Washington since 1857, and had seen, while in Congress, vast 
national development. But it was the development of Pittsfield 
upon which the address of Mr. Dawes affectionately dwelt. At 
the beginning of his congressional service, it was a rural village of 
a few thousand inhabitants, and when he returned to private 
life in it, he found a bustling and growing city. 

The reception, which was held at Central Hall on March 
twentieth, 1893, was memorable for its neighborly character, 
and in this respect honored the popular spirit no less than the 
distinguished and revered public servant whom the city wel- 
comed home. With the same heartiness, Pittsfield shared in oc- 
casions of a similar nature in the adjacent town of Dalton, and 
notably so in 1912, at the reception there of W. Murray Crane, 
after his service in the Senate of the United States. 

The city was twice visited briefly by President William Mc- 
Kinley, once in 1897 and again two years later. On September 
second, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt arrived in Dalton, 
where he was the guest of W. Murray Crane, then governor of 
Massachusetts. In the morning of the following day, the Presi- 
dent came to Pittsfield. He was received at the Park by the 
mayor of the city, Daniel England, and was presented to an 
enthusiastic throng, which packed Park Square. The occasion 



96 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

was well-ordered and pleasant, the day was fair, and it was known 
that the President was happily impressed by the hospitable 
warmth of his welcome and by the peaceful beauty of the majes- 
tic hills. After making a short speech from a platform near the 
Soldiers' Monument, he set off toward Lenox in a four-horse 
carriage, with Governor Crane and George L. Cortelyou, the 
presidential secretary. 

About a mile from the Park, at the foot of the hill on South 
Street, where Wampenum Brook crosses the highway, a crowded 
trolley car, bound also south, crashed against the President's car- 
riage. The driver was severely injured. A secret-service guard, 
who had been sitting beside the driver, was instantly killed. 
President Roosevelt, Governor Crane, and Mr. Cortelyou es- 
caped unhurt. 

Rarely was Pittsfield so distressed and humiliated as it was 
by this deplorable and shocking occurrence, which came within 
a hair's breadth of national tragedy. A resolution, passed two 
days later by the city council, tried to voice the popular feeling. 
"With profound sorrow, the city council of the city of Pittsfield 
regrets the accident which befell the president of the United 

States and his party The impressions of the 

happy incidents of the morning, including the president's felici- 
tous address at the Park, were instantly dissipated by the shock- 
ing news of the imminent personal danger which had threatened 
the president, the governor of the Commonwealth, and their 
party, and of the awful death of Officer William Craig, the presi- 
dent's body-guard". It is impossible, however, that any words 
could have expressed adequately the shame and concern felt by 
the community. Judicial procedure in January, 1903, affixed 
the legal responsibility for the fatal collision, and the motorman 
and conductor of the car each pleaded guilty in court to a charge 
of manslaughter. 

President Roosevelt visited Pittsfield a second time in June, 
1905; and in July, 1911, President William Howard Taft tarried 
in the city long enough to deliver a genial little speech about 
the 150th anniversary of Pittsfield's foundation, to an audience 
at the triangular, red, railroad station on West Street. 

During the summer of 1898, the station frequently became a 





THEODORE POMEROY 
1813—1881 



JAMES D. COLT 
1819—1881 





ENSIGN H. KELLOGG 
1812—1882 



EDWARD LEARNED 
1820—1886 



A MISCELLANY OF CITY LIFE 97 

theater for the display of that patriotic fervor which the brief 
war with Spain excited everywhere in the United States. Pitts- 
field had ceased to be the headquarters of a company of state 
militia with the disbanding of the Colby Guard, twenty years 
before. When Governor Wolcott, in May, 1898, called out the 
Western Massachusetts regiment for service against Spain, the 
town of Adams possessed the only Berkshire company; in this, 
two Pittsfield recruits were enlisted; and one of them, Franklin 
W. Manning, lost his young life in his country's service, dying 
of fever on the return voyage from Cuba. 

On its way from Adams to the mobilization camp. Company 
M, Second Massachusetts Infantry, passed through Pittsfield. 
This glimpse of the actual departure of Berkshire soldiers 
seemed immediately to kindle the popular spirit. The pas- 
sage through the city of other troops, from Massachusetts and 
New Hampshire, awakened tumultuous excitement. Local 
bands and vocalists exhausted themselves; fireworks blazed; a 
veteran fieldpiece of Civil War days roared salutes; and food 
and cofiPee were pressed upon the men in the cars, regardless of 
the hour. 

On May sixteenth, the city council passed an order directing 
the mayor "to notify the governor of the commonwealth that 
the citizens of Pittsfield stand ready whenever called upon to 
raise one or more companies for any arm of the service in the 
present war with Spain". On May twenty-third, nightly drills 
of a provisional company were commenced at Burbank's Hall, 
under the supervision of John Nicholson, who then held the 
office of chief of police. No additional troops, however, were 
called for by the state authorities, and Pittsfield volunteers, 
therefore, sought enlistment in many different commands. 
The city thus supplied forty -two men for the war, according to 
a list read at the Fourth of July celebration in 1898. This 
number was subsequently increased to 103. 

The observance of the Fourth of July of 1898 was conducted 
with unusual elaboration, and made distinctive by an oration 
by George P. Lawrence of North Adams, and by the gift of a 
flag to the city by the pupils of the public schools, which was 
raised on a mast in the center of the Park. Several other flag 



98 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

raisings marked the summer of the Spanish war, where favorite 
speakers were Rev. John W. Thompson, Joseph Tucker, William 
Turtle, and William W. Whiting, the mayor of the city. In 
more practical ways did Pittsfield manifest its patriotism. 
Liberal contributions of money were made to the Red Cross 
Society, and toward the equipment of a hospital ship, while 
many women of the city met daily to sew for the soldiers, as in 
the days of '61. 

The ungratified desire to put a local company into the service 
in 1898 resulted in a determined effort to establish in Pittsfield a 
company of state militia. This was finally accomplished three 
years later, through a petition to Governor Crane, which was 
earnestly endorsed by the city council; and Company F, Second 
Infantry, M. V. M., was mustered in, at the Casino on Summer 
Street, June sixth, 1901. Its first captain was John Nicholson, 
to whose energetic spirit it owed its inception. The armory on 
Summer Street was dedicated on December sixteenth, 1908. To 
its building fund the city made a liberal appropriation. 

The armory, in 1912, was the principal scene of a memorable 
celebration, for which the citizens of Pittsfield proudly and 
gratefully provided. This was the observance of the fiftieth 
anniversary of the departure from Pittsfield of the Thirty-seventh 
and Forty-ninth Massachusetts regiments in the Civil War. 
A large citizens' committee made industrious preparations for 
the event, and on September seventh, 1912, about two hundred 
veterans of the two regiments met in Pittsfield. They were 
oflficially greeted at the Park by the mayor, and after the busi- 
ness meetings of their regimental associations they dined in the 
armory, as honored guests of the people of the city, who did not 
fail to show their appreciation of the sentimental and historical 
value of the event. At the armory, the speech of the day was 
made by Charles E. Hibbard, on behalf of the citizens; and in 
the afternoon the old soldiers were taken in automobiles to re- 
visit their first camping-ground at the former Pleasure Park, on 
lower Elm Street. 

Previously to this by a score of years, the Pleasure Park, 
with its clubhouse, race track, and baseball diamond, had 
ceased to be the fashionable center of outdoor pastime. Horse 



A MISCELLANY OF CITY LIFE 99 

racing, however, was conducted there as late as 1889; and in 
1903 the half-mile track was publicly utilized for the last time, 
when the newly organized Berkshire Automobile Club held a 
field day, on July fourth. Then a crowd of curious spectators 
was interested by motor car races, wherein the novel vehicles 
traveled at the rate of two and a half minutes for the mile. The 
club already had participated that year in its first hill-climbing 
contest, over a course of two-fifths of a mile on West Street, from 
the river bridge to the top of Briggs hill. The record of the 
winning car was sixty-two seconds. Four years previously, in 
1899, a local newspaper had reported that "there are two auto- 
mobiles now in Pittsfield". 

A revival of bicycle track-racing, which had been popular 
at the Pleasure Park in the early eighties, was attempted with 
a good deal of elaboration in 1893, at the fair grounds on Wah- 
conah Street. The arrangements for the "tournament" pro- 
vided for expensive prizes, a street parade, and, in the evening, 
a wheelmen's ball; but the weather was unpropitious, the track 
unsuitable, and the effort was not repeated. Road-racing on 
bicycles obtained a greater share of attention; and during the 
last decade of the century, until the machines passed out of 
vogue for the purposes of pleasure, bicycle riding was the most 
conspicuous feature of Pittsfield outdoor life. It may be said 
to have been in some measure succeeded, for a time and fashion- 
ably at least, by the game of golf, first played in Pittsfield in 
1897, when the Country Club, having been formed in that year, 
opened for its members a nine-hole course, which occupied the 
quadrangle bounded by Dawes Avenue, Holmes Road, Williams 
Street, and Arlington Street. The club purchased its present 
beautiful property on lower South Street in 1899, and occupied 
it the following year. 

The Pittsfield Boat Club, soon after its organization in 1898, 
acquired the Point of Pines at Pontoosuc Lake; and under its 
auspices canoeing and boating became pastimes of increased 
popularity. Initiated by this club in 1899, the annual illumi- 
nated parades of boats and canoes at Pontoosuc were attractive 
events. The advent of the trolley car, in 1891, had already en- 
couraged the erection of numerous cottages and bungalows along 



100 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

the southern and eastern shores of the lake; refreshment and 
amusement paviHons were set up; and the sylvan and solitary 
environment of Pontoosuc was rapidly transformed into a pleas- 
urable dwelling place for nearly a thousand people during the 
summer months. Camp Merrill, the summer quarters of the 
local Y. M. C. A., was established at the lake in 1905, on land 
given to the association by Miss Hannah Merrill. 

A unique outdoor spectacle, which interested Pittsfield often 
between 1906 and 1909, was the starting of balloon races. In 
1907, the city was officially designated as the balloon ascent 
station of the Aero Club of America, whose object was the pro- 
motion of aerial navigation; the choice of Pittsfield as its head- 
quarters for ballooning was due probably to the residence in the 
neighboring town of Lenox of one of its influential members, 
Cortland F. Bishop, and to the efforts of local hotel and news- 
paper men, as well as to the co-operation of the management of 
the local gasworks. Land near the gasworks on East Street, 
beyond Silver Lake, was provided with facilities for the inflation 
of balloons, and became known as Aero Park. The first trial 
there of sending up passenger-bearing balloons was made on 
March tenth, 1906, and high winds prevented a start; but not 
infrequent ascents were made thereafter, and the city enjoyed a 
little temporary national fame because of them. The Pittsfield 
branch of the Aero Club purchased a balloon of its own in 1908, 
dubbed it "The Heart of the Berkshires", and leased it to ad- 
venturous voyagers, supplying the services of a licensed pilot. 
Within two or three years, however, aviation by means of aero- 
planes and dirigibles superseded ballooning in public interest, 
and the ascents from Pittsfield were discontinued. 

The winter sport of curling was introduced to the city in 
1896, when the Curling Club built a rink at Morningside; there 
ice polo was also popular, until the rink was dismantled in 1903. 
Beginning about 1887, the American modification of Rugby 
football was strenuously in vogue every autumn among the 
young men and boys of Pittsfield; and games on the Common 
during the autumn montljs attracted large and vocal crowds. 
An excellent ice hockey team represented the city in 1904, but 
the sport, in organized form, did not appear to stand permanently 



A MISCELLANY OF CITY LIFE 101 

in the aflPections of the people. Herein the national game of 
baseball doubtless held first place. In 1894, a team of profes- 
sional players represented Pittsfield, for about a month's time, 
in the New York State Baseball League; the local games were 
played on Wahconah Street at Wahconah Park, which was 
opened in 1892. The park, in 1913, was occupied by another 
league baseball team, representing Pittsfield in the Eastern As- 
sociation. 

The indoor game of basketball was first played publicly in 
Pittsfield at the Casino on Summer Street, which was built in 
1898 and was utilized variously as a theater, a rink for roller 
skating, and an armory for Company F. Remodeled, it became 
the Empire Theater and afterward the Grand. 

The Academy of Music remained the city's chief resort for 
theatrical amusement until 1903. On the evening of December 
twelfth of that year, occurred the last dramatic performance on 
the Academy's stage, which was thereafter dismantled; the 
theater on the second floor was changed to a public hall and 
subsequently into a place for the display of moving pictures. 
The final year of the existence of the theater as originally equip- 
ped was marked by a stirring night. After an exhibition of 
trained animals at the Academy in April, 1903, two lions broke 
loose in the alley behind the theater, and a lion hunt electrified 
North Street. One of the beasts was killed and the other re- 
captured. 

The Colonial Theater on South Street was opened on Septem- 
ber twenty-eighth, 1903, with a production of the musical play, 
"Robin Hood". The building was erected by John and James 
Sullivan, of North Adams, who conducted the theater until the 
winter of 1911, when it was sold to a corporation comprising 
about fifty local shareholders. The fact that the playhouse was 
then owned and directed by a considerable number of citizens 
aroused attention somewhat widely spread throughout the 
country, although the establishment of a municipal theater, ac- 
cording to the European model, was probably far from the pur- 
pose of the enterprise. In 1915 the local corporation sold the 
property. The increasing vogue of entertainment by means of 
moving pictures encouraged the erection of the Majestic Theater 



102 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

on North Street in 1910 and of the Union Square Theater on 
Union Street in 1912. 

The disbanding of the Berkshire Musical Festival Association, 
in 1895, left the city without an organized agency for the promo- 
tion of concerts; but in 1897 this need was met by the formation 
of the Pittsfield Symphony Society, under whose auspices a 
symphony orchestra was assembled, with Fred J. Liddle as di- 
rector, and a series of meritorious concerts given annually. 
The orchestra made its initial appearance on December eleventh, 
1897, at Central Hall, and about twenty concerts were enjoyed 
before the activities of the society were suspended in 1904. 
Productions of oratorios and choral compositions, always popular 
undertakings in Pittsfield, gratified the local public especially 
under the leadership of Charles F. Smith at the Methodist 
Church on Fenn Street, while to private enterprise were due pro- 
fessional visits to Pittsfield of such celebrated musical artists as 
Mme. Schumann-Heink, Paderewski, Kreisler, and John Mc- 
Cormack, who were heard at the armory and at the Colonial. 

Among social diversions, the annual charity ball was con- 
spicuous, arranged originally for the benefit of the Union for 
Home Work. Pittsfield's first "charity ball" was held at Cen- 
tral Hall on the evening of April eighth, 1896. In order to 
assure its success, many prominent citizens, including the mayor, 
co-operated in preliminary committees; and a social commenta- 
tor on the period might consider it worth while to note that the 
ball encountered well-intentioned and public opposition from 
two pulpits. It was repeated for several years on an elaborate 
scale for its original financial object, and afterward for the bene- 
fit of the Day Nursery Association and the House of Mercy. 

During the years which we are now surveying, the two hos- 
pitals, as well, indeed, as the benevolent spirit of the entire city, 
were put to a very rigorous and abrupt test on December twenty- 
ninth, 1910, when occurred the most severe disaster in Pittsfield's 
history. On that day, a boiler exploded in the power house of an 
ice company, standing on the north shore of Morewood Lake, 
near the railroad. The hour was in the morning, and the work- 
men had assembled in the engine house, in order to be placed on 
the pay roll for the day. Fourteen men were killed instantly, 



A MISCELLANY OF CITY LIFE 103 

including the engineer in charge, three died afterward of their 
injuries, and twenty were painfully but not mortally hurt. 
Of the local surgeons and nurses, and of the executive forces of 
both hospitals, prompt, skillful, and trying labor was demanded 
and obtained; nor was other help lacking. The city council 
met at once to devise plans for the relief of those in danger of 
destitution because of the calamity, and the people for this pur- 
pose soon subscribed a fund of $10,000. The presiding magis- 
trate at the legal inquest did not find that the unlawful act of 
any person then alive contributed to the death of the seventeen 
victims. 

A wave of popular excitement of a diflFerent sort agitated 
Pittsfield in 1900. In the early morning of August twentieth, 
the police department was notified that the residence of 
Robert L. Fosburg, at the corner of Tyler Street and Dalton 
Avenue, had been broken into by three masked intruders, and 
that his daughter had been shot and killed. The fire alarm was 
at once sounded, thus placing at the disposal of the authorities a 
large number of active men who knew the city well, and many 
of whom were special police officers. A search was commenced, 
not only of the city itself but of the surrounding hills. It was 
maintained for several days and nights, it engaged the services 
of about five hundred armed volunteers, besides those of Pinker- 
ton detectives and the state and local police, and it was a unique 
episode in the city's experience. 

No persons were discovered whose whereabouts on the night 
of August twentieth were not satisfactorily determined. Sub- 
sequently the grand jury brought an indictment against Miss 
Fosburg's brother, Robert L. Fosburg, Jr., for the unpremedi- 
tated killing of his sister. The case came to trial at Pittsfield in 
July, 1901, and was a newspaper sensation of some notoriety. 
After hearing the evidence, the presiding justice, declining to al- 
low the case to go to the jury, directed the discharge of the de- 
fendant. The identity of the slayer of Miss Fosburg has never 
been legally determined. 

A sweeping disaster by fire menaced the city at midnight of 
January twenty-seventh, 1912; and in the early morning hours 
of the following day two large blocks on the east side of North 



104 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

Street, immediately south of the railroad bridge, had been burned 
to the ground. One of these was the Academy of Music building. 
Its upper stories, planned originally for a theater, were palatable 
food for voracious flames, while the contents of some shops on 
the ground floor, in which paint, ammunition, high explosives, 
and barrels of spirits were variously stored, caused the fire to be 
peculiarly hazardous. In all probability, the railroad alone 
prevented the conflagration from spreading northward; but 
it was confined on the south and east by the firemen, professional 
and amateur, who worked effectively in the zero weather and 
with appliances not then adequate for such a task. The total 
loss to the owners and tenants of the buildings was estimated at 
$300,000. 

The glories of the old-time firemen's muster, dear to the 
volunteer firemen of other days, were vividly revived in Septem- 
ber of 1895. For three days, beginning on September twenty- 
fourth, the State Firemen's Association met in convention at 
Pittsfield. The occasion was celebrated with extensive hospitali- 
ty, by a gathering of veteran and active volunteer firemen from 
many towns, by parades and competitions, and by the dedica- 
tion of the city's new fire department house at the head of School 
Street. 

Of the people in any American town or city where the social 
traditions of a large volunteer fire department are still active, 
anxiety to acquit themselves with credit as public hosts is charac- 
teristic. It was certainly characteristic for many years of Pitts- 
field men, whatever may have been the inspiration; and often 
was the same hospitable desire displayed also by the women of 
the town and city, especially by the women of the several church 
societies and of the relief corps auxiliary to the Grand Army 
posts. When the community as a whole was called upon to en- 
tertain a number of visitors, the usual response from Pittsfield 
was willing, quick, and general, and a zealous wish, in vernacular 
phrase, "to do the thing right" seems to have been prevalent and 
dominant. The people were not averse, among themselves, to 
consider this trait with a good deal of justifiable pride, and to 
insist upon its manifestation. 

It was quite natural, then, that during the locally prosperous 



A MISCELLANY OF CITY LIFE 105 

and optimistic years following 1900 the city's public celebrations 
were laboriously and thoughtfully prepared. The custom of 
providing a huge municipal Christmas tree in the Park was ini- 
tiated in 1914. The observances of the national holiday on the 
Fourth of July had been somewhat haphazard, but in 1909 they 
began to be more carefully planned events. The Merchants' 
Association, in 1909, organized a celebration of the Fourth 
which attracted to the city about thirty thousand strangers, to 
be animated by parades, a balloon race, athletic contests, and 
an exhibition of fireworks. Thereafter the day was similarly 
distinguished annually, at a later date under the auspices of the 
Board of Trade and partly with the judicious design to provide 
safe and sane entertainment for a popular festival which cus- 
tomarily had kept doctors at work over maimed victims of pa- 
triotic fervor expressed by firecrackers and toy cannons. 

By far the most elaborate and important municipal celebra- 
tion in the history of Pittsfield began on July second, 1911, and 
commemorated the 150th anniversary of the incorporation of the 
town. Its proceedings, which continued for three days, shall 
be the subject of another chapter, but here it seems to be appro- 
priate to say that the preparation and the execution of the plans 
for this event were characterized by that hospitable public 
spirit, which, whenever properly called upon, always unified the 
people of the city. 

Leaving aside political questions and those incident to the 
administration of municipal affairs, the dispute in 1906 con- 
cerning the location of a federal building for a post office sur- 
passed in vigor any other difference of public opinion which per- 
turbed the city during the first twenty-five years of its existence. 
The post office accommodations in the Berkshire Life Insurance 
Company's building had become notoriously inadequate, and 
it was known that the authorities at Washington were meditating 
a change of quarters. Among the citizens, two energetic fac- 
tions at once came in conflict, one desirous that the office, with 
increased facilities, should be retained where it was, and the 
other strenuously urging that it be moved to the Mills building, 
on the east side of North Street to the north of the railroad 
bridge. The contest was devoid neither of acerbity nor of 



106 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

humor, as when rival Pittsfield delegations to Washington, each 
supposedly clandestine, met unexpectedly on the very threshold 
of the postmaster-general. It assumed another phase when 
Congress made an appropriation for a federal building in the 
city, and when the postal department invited offers of land for 
its site. Various owners of real estate then submitted nine loca- 
tions, lying in a zone which extended from the south side of 
West Street northward to Kent Avenue. 

The ensuing discussion between "the north-enders and the 
south-enders" is now significant chiefly for the light which its 
arguments may cast upon the physical development of the city 
in 1906. The north-end party asserted that the center of popu- 
lation was at the line of Madison Avenue, that only one business 
structure of importance had been erected south of the Park for 
forty years, and that to establish the post office near the Park 
would "retard the growth of the city, forcing its centralization 
to a point from which it was persistently growing"; while the 
other faction was attached to the theory that Park Square was 
likely to be the permanent center of the city's cardinal activities, 
and that the presence there of large financial institutions, the 
city hall, and the junction of the main lines of street railways, 
prohibited the removal of the post office to a considerable dis- 
tance. 

In October of 1906, the postal department expressed its 
preference for a site on the corner of Fenn Street and an extension 
of Allen Street, provided the city's holdings therein could be se- 
cured at a price which might be entertained. On November 
twelfth, 1906, the city council voted to make the necessary ar- 
rangements, which involved not only the sale of a schoolhouse 
lot, but also the moving of the schoolhouse westward, and the 
dedication of land adjacent to highway uses. The result was 
more satisfactory than compromises usually are. The corner 
stone of the new federal building was laid in 1910; and the post 
office began business there on January first, 1911. 

Three years later, on August twenty-third, 1914, the public 
was gratified by the opening of a new railroad station on West 
Street. The mayor had appointed a committee, composed of 
Zenas Crane, John A. Spoor, and John C. Crosby, to confer with 



A MISCELLANY OF CITY LIFE 107 

the railroad authorities, and urge upon them the advisabiHty of 
supplying the city with a station suitable to its size and in- 
creased importance as a railroad center. The triangular building 
which had served for forty years was obviously outgrown and 
outdated, and the committee's object was achieved. The New 
York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad Company, having ac- 
quired the former Burbank Hotel property, broke ground on that 
site in 1913 for a new station, and upon its completion razed the 
veteran structure nearby. 



CHAPTER VIII 
THE CONDUCT OF MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS, 1891-1916 

UNTIL the twentieth century, the inhabitants of American 
cities seem rarely to have concerned themselves with 
theories of municipal government. Municipal administra- 
tion was popularly measured not by its method but by what it 
visibly and tangibly produced. A scheme of city government, 
which unavoidably wasted time, effort, and even some of the 
taxpayers' money, might often pass uncriticized, if only it yielded 
to the people at large an ordinary supply of physical conveniences; 
and the principal, or at least the primary, test of the conduct of 
municipal affairs was commonly applied by a count of the city's 
material possessions. 

The public equipment bequeathed in 1891 by the town and 
the fire district to the city of Pittsfield was competent. The 
police and fire departments were eflBcient. The waterworks were 
in good condition and financially so situated that their indebted- 
ness was no burden. Serviceable sidewalks had been newly 
built, and the street lighting system was sufficient. The care 
of the poor was suitably administered. The town sustained in 
part an excellent public library. The education supplied by the 
public schools was commensurate with the popular desire. 
The indebtedness of town and fire district, which was assumed 
by the city, was $456,128.25. The taxable valuation was 
$10,292,696. 

In some respects, however, the municipal equipment of 1891 
was defective. The precise locations of many streets were 
legally indefinite, and the engineering records of the town and 
fire district were incomplete. There was dissatisfaction with the 
existing machinery for the assessment of taxes, which was de- 
nounced as out-of-date and inexact. It was necessary at once 
to rearrange and partly to rebuild the town hall, of which the 



CONDUCT OF MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS, 1891-1916 109 

town in 1882 had acquired sole ownership by purchase, for 
$10,000, from the successors to the rights therein of Lemuel 
Pomeroy. More conspicuous was the necessity for improving 
the condition of the business streets; most conspicuous was the 
vital need of new sewers. 

In 1890, a joint committee of the town and the fire district 
had obtained the passage by the legislature of an "Act to au- 
thorize the City of Pittsfield to construct a system of sewerage, 
and to provide for the payment therefor". The voters of Pitts- 
field, at the election of December second, 1890, gave to this 
measure their emphatic approval, and under its provisions work 
began without delay. A board of sewer commissioners was im- 
mediately empowered, of which the members were John H. 
Manning, Charles W. Kellogg, and James L. Bacon. They 
began, in the summer of 1891, to execute plans prepared by 
Ernest W. Bowditch, of Boston, the engineer employed by the 
joint committee above mentioned. The proposed system was 
endorsed by the state's board of health. 

Two main trunk sewers were prescribed. One of them was 
to run south from a point on Burbank Street, near the jail, to 
Elm Street, thence to follow the line of the river to an outfall a 
short distance south of Pomeroy Avenue. The other was to 
begin at Alder Street and follow approximately the west branch 
of the Housatonic to the same place of discharge into the river. 
This outlet was to be closed not later than the year 1900, and 
the sewage to be thereafter disposed of by the method known as 
intermittent filtration. 

Ground was broken in 1891 for the eastern trunk sewer, and 
the western was commenced in 1892. The laying of numerous 
laterals kept pace as closely as possible with the construction of 
the main lines. The task was considerable, and it made the 
city first acquainted with large numbers of Italian laborers. 
At the end of the working season of 1893, the energetic commis- 
sioners had directed the building of nineteen miles of sewer, 
and the expenditure of $274,000. During the twenty-four years 
between 1867 and 1891, the construction cost to the town and 
fire district of their sewers and main drains had been less than 
$100,000. 



110 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

By authority of legislative enactment at Boston in 1895, the 
local board of public works assumed, in May of that year, the 
powers and duties exercised by the sewer commissioners. The 
intermittent filtration beds were not completed until 1902, when 
they were placed in operation near the river about two miles 
southeast of the original outfall of the trunk sewers, and the 
sewage was forced thereto by a pumping plant. In 1915, the 
new sewer system, having year by year been extended and en- 
larged, represented a cost of about $860,000. 

The improvement of the central streets was attempted by 
the city with similar promptness, but here permanent results 
were not so speedily evident. The method in use was that of 
macadamizing, and the town authorities had been trying to 
accomplish the impossible task, in the words of the first mayor's 
inaugural address, of "compacting a road bed so as to bear the 
weight of a loaded wagon of from four to six tons, having wheels 
with narrow tires, by the use of a road roller weighing not over 
eight tons". The city's first board of public works immediately 
bought a heavy steam roller, and used for macadamizing the 
main highways a more suitable material than the flinty rock of 
the eastern hills, of which the town had long availed itself; 
nevertheless, the condition of the business streets was not gen- 
erally held to be satisfactory. The mayor in 1903 felt justified 
in declaring to the city council that "our principal business 
thoroughfares are today in practically the same condition in 
which they were twenty years ago". Indeed, no subject in the 
field of public utilities has been so perplexing and so chronic a 
problem to successive administrations of town and city. 

For several years immediately prior to 1902, delay in paving 
the streets had been counseled with apparent wisdom, because 
of the constant laying of new sewers, water and gas pipes, and 
car tracks ; but at the municipal election of that year the follow- 
ing referendum was submitted to the voters: "Shall a system of 
street paving be commenced in this city in 1903?" The referen- 
dum received 3,077 affirmative votes to 717 in the negative. 
So earnest were the voters, that, at the same time, they some- 
what confusedly registered by ballot their approval of bonding 
the city in the sum of $100,000 for the expense of paving, and also 



CONDUCT OF MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS, 1891-1916 111 

of meeting the expense by annual appropriations, which were 
financial measures obviously incompatible. As to the main 
question, however, the instruction by the electorate was both 
explicit and mandatory. 

Harry D. Sisson, the mayor of 1903, pressed the undertaking 
with due dispatch. During the year Clapp Avenue, a portion 
of upper North Street, and West Street, from the railroad station 
to the Park, were surfaced with bitulithic pavement, and Park 
Place and lower North Street were paved with sheet asphalt. 
The expenditure of about $100,000 was supervised by a special 
committee, headed by the mayor. 

Subsequent additions to Pittsfield's system of paved streets 
increased its mileage only slightly in twelve years. That sys- 
tem measured, in January, 1915, about three and a half miles of 
asphalt, bitulithic, brick, wood block, asphaltic macadam, and 
cement concrete pavement. The chief obstacle to the extensions 
of permanent pavement seems not to have been any lack of 
favorable public sentiment but rather the problem of finance, 
arising, as did so many of Pittsfield's problems contemporaneous 
with it, from the abnormally rapid growth of the city. The 
large annual gains of population forced upon the municipal 
authorities the equipment of new residential streets in preference 
to the costly improvements of existing business thoroughfares. 
It may justly be observed, also, that this unusual burden chanced 
to be imposed upon the local officials at the time when the ad- 
vent of the motor car and the motor truck was also perplexing 
highway builders everywhere in this country with novel difficul- 
ties. 

The Ashley waterworks, acquired by the new city from the 
old fire district, were not supplied with a suitable storage reservoir 
and they had been originally designed to provide water for 
merely that portion of the township which lay within a radius of 
a mile from the Park. The members of the city's first board of 
public works, considering the future extension of the system far 
beyond its former limits, promptly appreciated the necessity of 
planning increased supply; and to this end they employed an 
advisory engineer in the summer of 1891. He recommended 
the appropriation by the city of the water and the watershed of 



112 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

Pontoosuc Lake, and also the driving of twenty wells in a meadow 
near Sackett Brook, whence the water was to be pumped into a 
storage reservoir. The city's officials decided instead to utilize 
Hathaway Brook, a small Washington Mountain stream, and, 
under the authority of a legislative act of 1892, water from this 
brook was turned into the mains in April, 1893. It was the 
first addition made in seventeen years to the sources of Pitts- 
field's water supply. 

In the meantime, the city's consumption of water 'per capita 
began markedly to increase. Meters set occasionally in business 
blocks and manufactories showed a daily consumption "not only 
startling, but almost beyond belief", according to the report of 
the superintendent of the waterworks in 1895. Successive 
boards of public works vainly urged the permanent installation 
of water meters. The pressure often was alarmingly low in 
outlying districts, so low in 1893 that it afforded no fire protection 
at Pontoosuc and Taconic. Since 1876, when the Sackett Brook 
dam and pipe line were added to the Ashley waterworks, the 
consumption of water had increased nearly three-fold, but the 
only addition in seventeen years to the sources of supply had 
been the acquisition of Hathaway Brook. 

In 1894, the situation was somewhat relieved by the laying 
of a large distributing main from the bridge on Elm Street to 
Pontoosuc village; and in the following years the city employed 
another consulting engineer, D. M. Greene of Troy, to con- 
sider the water problem. One of the recommendations of Mr. 
Greene's exhaustive report was speedily adopted, and the right 
to use Mill Brook, in the northeastern part of the town of Lenox, 
was obtained by the city, a small reservoir was built thereon, 
and its water, in 1896, became available for the mains of Pitts- 
field. 

Soon a change of policy, or of method, was for a time discern- 
ible in the securing of additional water supply. It was pointed 
out that new sources need not be sought, that a large amount of 
excellent water ran to waste at certain seasons from the water- 
shed of Ashley Lake, and that the conservation of this supply 
might be more immediately desirable than a connection of the 
city's waterworks with distant brooks of fickle flowage. Ac- 



CONDUCT OF MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS, 1891-1916 113 

cordingly, official energies were devoted to obtaining an increased 
storage capacity of the system laid out by the old fire district, 
forty years before. Work on a new and higher dam at Ashley 
Lake began in February, 1901. The original contractors aban- 
doned the undertaking during the next September, and its 
completion was therefore delayed, but water was finally turned 
into the new basin on December twenty-third, 1902. The dam 
had added twenty acres to the area of the lake and increased its 
capacity to about 400,000,000 gallons. 

Nevertheless, the members of the board of public works were 
not satisfied; they were of the opinion that "steps, if preliminary 
only, should be taken this year for providing additional storage 
capacity at the Ashley distributing reservoir" on the brook be- 
low the lake. The mayor of 1906, Allen H. Bagg, repeated the 
suggestion insistently. *Tt is of the greatest importance," said 
his inaugural address, "that attention be given our water system, 
in order that additional storage be secured and the useless waste 

of water about our city be checked To carefully 

consider this entire problem and determine just the right action 
to take is the most important matter we have this year to meet". 
The public officials, in short, were alive to the public needs. 
The report of the board of public works of 1905 showed that 
the per capita consumption of water in Pittsfield was 150 gallons 
daily, and that, during the previous ten years, eighteen miles of 
mains had been added to Pittsfield's water system. 

An act of the legislature authorizing the city to take the 
water of Roaring Brook in Lenox and Washington became law 
in 1907, but Pittsfield did not immediately utilize the privilege. 
Instead, the board of public works pursued the policy of in- 
creasing the gravity pressure of established supply, and work 
was begun in 1907 on raising the intake reservoir dams of x'Vshley, 
Sackett, Hathaway and Mill Brooks. The enlargement of these 
intake reservoirs was completed in 1908, so that the aggregate 
capacity of the four was estimated to be 40,000,000 gallons. Of 
these, the principal one was the new reservoir on Ashley Brook, 
where was built a hollow dam of reinforced concrete, 450 feet 
long with a height of forty feet at the spillway. 

The taxpayers were somewhat dismayed on January seventh. 



114 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

1909, when water percolating under the foundations of this dam 
caused a "washout". The structure was not carried away, 
and the damage was finally repaired without financial loss to the 
city. 

Public anxiety regarding the water supply, however, was 
caused with more reason by the local effects of two years in suc- 
cession, 1908 and 1909, of unusual drought. The supply in the 
reservoirs was nearly exhausted. In 1908, it was necessary to 
pump from Ashley Lake, where the original bowl was lower than 
the outfall, and to divert temporarily Roaring Brook into the 
Mill Brook supply, while in 1909 the emergency induced the 
Massachusetts board of health to consent to the pumping of 
water from Onota Lake into the mains. The growing city seems 
to have been in a situation only a little short of precarious; and 
William H. Maclnnis, the mayor in 1910, seems accurately to 
have voiced public sentiment when he declared that the provision 
of water supply was then the "one great and monumental duty" 
of his municipal administration. It is right to add that this 
duty was performed with judicious liberality, and that the out- 
come of the city's long standing anxieties in this matter was the 
wise and energetic accomplishment of the most important and 
considerable single public work which Pittsfield had achieved. 

The city council of 1910 promptly passed, at the request of 
the mayor, an order authorizing him to appoint a committee of 
citizens, to whom should be entrusted the comprehensive task of 
increasing the permanent water supply; and Mayor Maclnnis, 
on January twenty-ninth, 1910, accordingly appointed William 
H. Swift, Edward A, Jones, Daniel England, Arthur H. Rice, 
and James W. Hull. William H. Swift was named as chairman. 
Fred T. Francis acted as secretary. The committee lost no 
time. In March it submitted a preliminary report to the city 
council advising the construction of a large storage reservoir on 
October Mountain. The city council adopted the report. 

The location of this proposed reservoir, at the headwaters of 
Mill Brook in the township of Washington, had been recom- 
mended to the council of 1909 by Arthur B. Farnham, then the 
engineering agent of the board of public works, and the citizens' 
committee of 1910 greatly amplified Mr. Farnham's tentative 



CONDUCT OF MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS, 1891-1916 115 

suggestion. With him as an advisory and executive assistant, 
the members of the committee consulted experts, among whom 
were Hiram A. Miller of Boston, Prof. William H. Burr of New 
York, and Prof. W. O. Crosby of Boston. In August, 1910, the 
committee's studious labor resulted in the presentation to the 
city council of a second and more elaborate report, which en- 
larged substantially the scope of the former design. It advocated 
the interception of five of the tributary waters of Roaring Brook 
and their diversion by conduit and open channel into Mill 
Brook, the building across the Mill Brook gorge on October 
Mountain of a masonry and concrete dam, about 900 feet long, 
100 feet high, and with a maximum thickness of 68 feet, and the 
preparation behind it of a storage reservoir to have a capacity of 
440,000,000 gallons and a catchment area of about four square 
miles. In the committee's judgment, the execution of this 
scheme would double the existing water supply. 

Adverse criticism mildly excited itself. Not a few public- 
spirited citizens were startled by the probable cost of the enter- 
prise, which was informally estimated to be in the neighborhood 
of $750,000, inclusive of the expenditure for land and water 
rights, for the reconstruction of a mile of highway, and for pipe 
lines. It was honestly apprehended by some people that so 
large a reservoir on the mountainside could never be filled. 
Furthermore, with the natural reservoirs of Richmond Pond, of 
Onota, or of Pontoosuc Lake, nearer at hand, why spend so much 
money to build an artificial reservoir five miles from the Park? 

The committee, however, was fortified by solid argument, 
and its conclusions had been reached with exceptional fore- 
thought. Engineers of high reputation, and the state board of 
health as well, had approved the details of the plan; and it was 
obvious that the watershed of the proposed reservoir could be 
guarded against pollution more readily and economically than 
could that of a lake nearer the expanding residential district. 
Finally, a quarry not far from the site of the proposed dam was 
owned by the city, from which it was believed stone could be 
taken suitable in quality and quantity. 

The design was affirmed by the municipal government, and 
by it, on November seventh, 1910, the committee was authorized 



116 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

to execute the project. In the meantime, the mayor had pro- 
cured authority for the city to assume the bonded indebtedness 
immediately necessary. The successful bidders for the contract 
of building the dam were Winston and Company of New York, 
who began work in January of 1911. The working plans re- 
quired among other tasks the clearing of forty-six acres of land, 
the excavation of 94,000 cubic yards of earth and rock, and the 
construction of 47,000 cubic yards of masonry. Universal ac- 
ceptance was promptly and willingly given to the popular sug- 
gestion that the new reservoir should bear the name of Arthur B. 
Farnham, the engineer who had suggested its site and had as- 
sisted in planning its details. 

Death removed one member of the committee, James W. 
Hull, on February second, 1911; the resulting vacancy remained 
unfilled. 

The committee had engaged Hiram A. Miller of Boston to 
serve as its chief engineer of construction, and had made an ar- 
rangement with the board of public works, whereby its clerical 
business, as well as much of its engineering labor, was done in the 
office of the board. The progress of the contractors seems to 
have been watched by the committee with unusual vigilance. 
The most important metal work for the dam and conduits was 
made "expressly for the city under inspection at the place of 
manufacture", according to the committee's report. "All the 
cement used was inspected at the mill and a sample from each 
carload was tested after it arrived at the New Lenox railroad 
station. The mixing of the concrete, the masonry work on the 
dam, the work on the conduits, and in fact all the work of the 
contractors was done under constant and efficient supervision. 
The sanitary condition of the camps was watched, the camps be- 
ing visited regularly by a physician employed by the city. 
No deaths occurred as the result of lack of care or bad conditions 
in the camps or elsewhere on the work, and there was no loss of 
life from accident. The water supply for the reservoir was re- 
peatedly examined by the State Board of Health, and approved, 
and the committee had an independent bacteriological examina- 
tion made of the water before turning over the reservoir to the 
Board of Public Works." The daily measuring, laying out, and 



CONDUCT OF MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS, 1891-1916 117 

recording the work of the contractors gave constant employment 
to the committee's assistant engineers, for whom was equipped a 
boarding house and office near the reservoir. The conscientious 
care, in short, bestowed upon the undertaking was proportionate 
to its great importance to the pubhc. 

The Farnham dam and reservoir were completed on Novem- 
ber twenty-second, 1912. During the following year, this addi- 
tion to the water system was proved to be amply successful, 
and the actual impoundage of water in all of the city's reservoirs 
amounted approximately to 800,000,000 gallons according to the 
annual report of the board of public works in 1913. A statement 
of the special committee, made on November first, 1913, showed 
that the cost of the additional waterworks had been $781,349.78, 
of which about one-third was cost of pipe lines. Public opinion 
applauded the committee, and with reason; for through the effi- 
cient labor of its members the city's water supply had been so 
increased that the maximum quantity of water in storage, with 
the run-off from the brooks, would yield an average, even in a 
series of dry years, of 5,500,000 gallons a day. 

The inception, then, of three municipal utilities of conse- 
quence — namely, a sewer system, a system of paved streets, and 
an increased water supply — was accomplished in Pittsfield, be- 
tween 1891 and 1912, not by the usual agencies of a city govern- 
ment but by special boards or commissions, erected each for a 
specific purpose. This purpose having been fulfilled, the board 
of public works assumed, or re-assumed, the control of the public 
properties involved, and the duty of maintaining them on a scale 
suitable to the public needs. 

The burden shouldered by many of the boards of public 
works, during the first quarter-century of the city's existence, 
was unusually heavy. To meet with justice the demands of a 
growing community by means of annual appropriations allowed 
from often overstrained municipal funds, required pertinacity; 
and the recorded figures indicate continuous effort during this 
period. The humble item of street hydrants, for example, is 
significant, for of these there were ninety -four in 1891, and 573 in 
1915. In 1891 there were 256 electric street lights; in 1915 there 
were 1,563. Between 1901 and 1915 the total length of concrete 



118 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

sidewalks increased from twenty-four to forty-two miles, that of 
surface water drains from five to fourteen miles, and that of water 
mains from sixty-four to one hundred and twelve miles, while in 
the same brief period the number of crosswalks rose from 356 
to 634. Only a part of the activities of the boards may be in- 
ferred from these figures. Pittsfield's growth caused the fre- 
quent grading and location of new streets; and the rebuilding 
of bridges, made essential by heavier traffic and changed methods 
of conveyance, was at the same time an unusual duty. In 1905, 
the first concrete bridge in Pittsfield was built across the Housa- 
tonic at West Street, and its then novel mode of construction, 
as well as its grace of lines, attracted much notice. 

The city's board of public works of three members was 
chosen, according to the original charter, by the city council. 
The men who held this office were: Edward D. Jones (1891- 
1899), Joseph H. Daly (1891-1895), Hiram B. Wellington (1891), 
Hezekiah S. Russell (1892-1894), John M, Lee (1895), John H. 
Manning (1896-1899), James L. Bacon (1896-1903), Franklin A. 
Smith (1900-1903), George W. Bailey (1900-1903), Jeremiah M. 
Linnehan (1904-1911), Charles K. Ferry (1904-1906), Frank 
Howard (1904-1911), Chester E. Gleason (1907-1911), and Jay 
P. Barnes (1912-1914). Maurice J. Madden, Patrick J. Flynn, 
and Eugene H. Robbins constituted the board in 1915, of whom 
Messrs. Madden and Flynn first served in 1912, and Mr. Robbins 
in 1915. 

One of the minor tasks of the board was the adaptation of 
the town building, erected on Park Square in 1832, to the re- 
quirements of a city hall. Brick additions have been built on its 
north side; but its southern exterior has remained practically 
unchanged for more than eighty years. 

The city inherited from the town three tracts of land dedi- 
cated to public use as parks — the Common on First Street, Bur- 
bank Park at Onota Lake, and the Park at the meeting point of 
the four main streets; and to these should be added the land on 
South Street, left vacant in 1895 by the burning of the high 
school. The development of this nucleus of a park system, in 
charge of the city council, does not appear for several years to 
have excited much popular interest. In 1905, however, the 



CONDUCT OF MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS, 1891-1916 119 

Common was partly equipped as a playground and provided 
with walks, benches, and shade trees, and thereto was moved a 
band stand from a triangular plot which until then it occupied in 
front of the Athenaeum. In 1906, the city purchased seventy- 
six acres next northerly of the land which it already owned on 
the shore of Onota Lake, raising its holdings there to about 190 
acres. In 1910, the city bought a parcel of land south of its 
former high school site, on South Street, and graded the entire 
area of three acres for use as a small common. 

Kelton B. Miller, in 1910, conveyed to the city a tract of 
land at Springside, for which the consideration named in the deed 
was "the affection I bear to the City of Pittsfield". The condi- 
tions of the conveyance were that the city should acquire certain 
land adjacent to this tract and should maintain forever and 
reasonably improve the whole for the enjoyment of the public. 
By the city these conditions were gratefully accepted, so that 
Pittsfield became the owner of the pleasant ten acres of land 
then known as Abbot Park, and so named in honor of Rev. 
Charles E. Abbot, who conducted a boys' school nearby from 
1856 to 1866. Within a few years, Mr. Miller added substantial- 
ly to his original gift. The first name of the park seems soon to 
have slipped into disuse, and the title "Springside Park" to have 
been ofiicially substituted for it. 

In 1913 the mayor appointed a park commission of five mem- 
bers, who chose Fred T. Francis as chairman, and to whom were 
intrusted the maintenance and development of Pittsfield's sys- 
tem of parks; and in that year the commission began proceed- 
ings which soon resulted in the acquirement for the city of ten 
acres of woodland on the south shore of Pontoosuc Lake. Va- 
rious small plots at the intersections of streets were by the com- 
mission protected and in appearance improved. 

Of much more vital importance was the maintenance of the 
city's public playgrounds, which the commission assumed in 
conjunction with a Park and Playground Association of private 
citizens. As has been heretofore mentioned, the provision of a 
system of public playgrounds was initiated by this association in 
1911. Pittsfield was among the first cities in the Commonwealth 
to accept by vote a statutory referendum authorizing municipal 



120 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

appropriations for playground purposes. The city's annual 
appropriation, after 1912, was nearly doubled by private sub- 
scription and other agencies. The principal playgrounds es- 
tablished, equipped with apparatus, and supervised by pro- 
fessional directors, were on Columbus Avenue (the "William Pitt 
Playground"), at Springside, Russell's, and Pontoosuc; and the 
Common became a playground legally when the association was 
organized. 

The Balance Rock trust, organized by Kelton B. Miller in 
1910, had for its object "to preserve Balance Rock and the land 
in connection therewith as a public park, as a place for the study 
of and experiments in forestry, and as a resort for sightseers and 
students of nature, and for other public purposes." Twenty-six 
public-spirited citizens of Pittsfield contributed to the trust 
fund, whereby was purchased the picturesque, wooded tract of 
land in Lanesborough, upon which the curious bowlder, known 
of old as "Rolling Rock," is to be seen. The trustees, by unani- 
mous consent of the contributors, were directed in 1916 to convey 
the property to the city, and it thus became a part of the city's 
park system. 

Points of noteworthy historical interest seem not to be pre- 
sented by the conduct of some other departments of Pittsfield's 
municipal administration, however important, such as those di- 
rected by the boards of assessors, the overseers of the poor, the 
boards of health, the license commissioners, and the city solici- 
tors. The first city solicitor, in 1891 was Walter F. Hawkins, 
and the other lawyers who served the city in that capacity during 
its first quarter-century were John F. Noxon, John C. Crosby, 
Milton B. Warner, James Fallon, and John J. Whittlesey. The 
city clerks have been Kelton B. Miller, Edward Cain, Edward C. 
Hill, J. Ward Lewis, Ernest Johnson, John Barker, Alfred C. 
Daniels and Norman C. Hull. 

While the charter did not allow to the mayor direct power in 
the physical improvement of the city, nevertheless he was often 
able to exert a potent influence in these matters of public welfare. 
Thus the mayor, although charged by law primarily with execu- 
tive duties, was at times in a position to assume, with benefit to 
the city, some other functions, of which not the least important 



CONDUCT OF MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS, 1891-1916 121 

was that of an informative agent for the voters, or, it may almost 
be said, that of a municipal watchman. 

In the twenty-five years from 1891 to 1916, thirteen men 
held the oflBce of mayor of Pittsfield, elected annually. Their 
names and years of service were: Charles E. Hibbard (1891), 
Jabez L. Peck (1892 and 1893), John C. Crosby (1894 and 1895), 
Walter F. Hawkins (1896 and 1897), William W. Whiting (1898 
and 1899), Hezekiah S. Russell (1900 and 1901), Daniel England 
(1902), Harry D. Sisson (1903 and 1904), Allen H. Bagg (1905, 
1906, and 1907), William H. Maclnnis (1908, 1909, and 1910), 
Kelton B. Miller (1911 and 1912), Patrick J. Moore (1913 and 
1914), and George W. Faulkner (1915). Mr. Faulkner was re- 
elected in 1915. The popular choice for mayor was usually ex- 
pressed by a good-sized majority, although at the city election in 
1910 the office for 1911 was awarded by a preponderance of only 
twelve votes. An alignment according to national political 
parties shows that the Republican mayoralty candidate was 
fourteen times successful at the polls and the Democratic, eleven. 

Problems of municipal finance and economy offered them- 
selves to the mayors of Pittsfield during these years with an 
insistence probably exceptional among New England cities; 
and they were called upon to scrutinize, and, so far as they 
could do so under the charter, to influence the action of the city 
council, in situations also somewhat exceptional, because of the 
conditions which were created properly by the local activities of 
powerful absentee corporations, and which were novel in the 
city's experience. The annual salary attached to the office was 
one thousand dollars. With one or two exceptions, the thirteen 
mayors mentioned were active business men or lawyers in prac- 
tice, and were not permitted by their personal circumstances to 
devote themselves exclusively to public duties. 

The financial development of Pittsfield's municipal affairs, 
with which the mayors were thus identified, may be inferred, in 
part at least, from the varying state of the public indebtedness. 
In 1891, the town and fire district indebtedness, less the sinking 
fund, was $332,225.89, which was assumed by the new city on 
the day of its birth. On January first, 1916, the debt of the city 
was $2,847,577.50. 



122 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

Administrators of local government in Pittsfield were not ad- 
dicted to the habit either of lecturing the public or of complain- 
ing of their difficulties. Nevertheless, their reports reiterate a cer- 
tain admonition so often that it is worthy of remark, not because 
the municipal imprudence which it was designed to correct is at 
all uncommon, but because Pittsfield's town and city officials 
warned the community against it with uncommon persistence. 
In their public recommendations, no general policy has been re- 
prehended so constantly as has been that which delays annual 
expenditure for permanent improvements until, under pressure 
of necessity, a large financial outlay must be made in a brief 
period. Thus the school committee of 1879, when land for 
several new schoolhouses was an immediate need, admitted the 
uneconomic failure of the town to provide school sites one or two 
at a time; and the committee's report added: "Well will it be 
for our reputation and our children's purses, if accusations of a 
similar lack of foresight lie not as truly against this generation". 
Thus eighteen years later, the mayor of 1897 said in his inaugural 
address: "We shall not be justified in seeking for ourselves a 
fleeting reputation for economy at the expense of coming years"; 
and thus the mayor of 1903, while discussing the cost of street 
paving, said to the members of the city government: "Had the 
foresight and wisdom of the honorable gentlemen who have pre- 
ceded me been favorably acted upon at the time, Pittsfield 
would today be enjoying the fruits of her public spirit, and the 
question of paving, with the consequent debt, would have been a 
thing of the past". 

Instances of similar public counsel abound; and if Pittsfield's 
municipal resources were sometimes overweighted temporarily 
because of the community's past failure to look ahead, such a 
failure seems seldom to have been chargeable to lack of watchful- 
ness on the part of the chief officials of town and city. 

The annals of Pittsfield before the year 1916 record the deaths 
of three men among the thirteen whom the city called to the 
position of its chief magistrate, Jabez L. Peck, mayor in 1892 
and 1893, died April fifth, 1895. He was born in Pittsfield, De- 
cember seventh, 1826. His father. Captain Jabez Peck, came 
to Pittsfield from Lenox in 1816. In 1864, Jabez L. Peck became 



CONDUCT OF MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS, 1891-1916 123 

the sole owner of a manufactory of cotton warp on Onota Brook, 
having purchased the interests therein of his father and of his 
uncle. In the same year he built a brick mill, in partnership 
with J. P. Kilbourn, and in 1868 he bought out his partner and 
utilized the upper mill for the manufacture of flannels. The 
prosperity of both of these enterprises was long continued. In 
1890, the Peck Manufacturing Company was incorporated, of 
which Mr. Peck remained president until his death. He was 
president also of the Berkshire Mutual Fire Insurance Company, 
and a director of the Agricultural Bank, of the Berkshire Life 
Insurance Company, and of the Berkshire County Savings Bank. 

The responsibilities of successful business and of financial 
trust by no means overstrained Mr. Peck's singular energy. It 
found other outlets, in the performance, for example, of duties so 
oddly divergent as those of a Sunday school superintendent and 
of the chief engineer of Pittsfield's volunteer fire department. 
He was a deacon, and a conscientious, important officer, of the 
First Church, and his individual effort was for many years in- 
valuable to the mission and Sunday school from which the Pil- 
grim Memorial Church was developed. From holding public 
office he was disinclined; but when he assumed it, he was therein 
diligent and masterful, as he was in all his undertakings. "Su- 
perfluous force in him", said truthfully his friend and pastor, 
"seemed always struggling to expend itself. He walked — when 
he walked — as if driven onward by power he could not with- 
stand. When he rode, he rode as if demons of speed were after 
him. His mental movements were as quick and strong." 

Such precipitate personal force in a community may be un- 
productive, unless controlled; but Mr. Peck's Gallic impetuosity 
was so governed by his Yankee common sense that the Pittsfield 
of his generation gained by it. An efficient and frequent helper 
of what was good, he wanted to have his own way, but he was 
accessible, neighborly, catholic; no man in Pittsfield was more 
generally called by his nickname. For the opinion which people 
might have of him, he seemed to care little. Like many Pitts- 
field manufacturers of his day, he had learned in business to 
stand on his own feet, and his attitude anywhere was similarly 
independent. He formed his own judgments; they satisfied 



124 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

him; and he both expressed them and sought their fulfillment 
with swift and self-confident zeal. 

Mr. Peck represented his ward as alderman in Pittsfield's 
first city council, and immediately thereafter he was twice elected 
mayor. The municipal period in which he served was one of 
experiment. It was fortunate for the new form of government 
on trial at this time that it possessed in Mr. Peck a leader whose 
reliability for accomplishment had already been tested in his 
birthplace for forty years, whose strength of character was so 
familiar to his fellow citizens, and whose personality was so 
picturesque and compelling. 

William W. Whiting was mayor in 1898 and 1899. He was 
born at Bath, New York, on May seventh, 1847, and came in 
1866 to Pittsfield, where he spent the rest of his life in the business 
of a wholesale dealer in writing paper. Under the old town 
government he was a selectman in 1885, 1886, and 1887, and 
he was otherwise conspicuous in public affairs as a favorite 
moderator at town and fire district meetings, and as an excep- 
tionally capable collector of taxes. He was fond in those days 
of a political clash; on the floor of the town hall or at a stormy 
village caucus, he could lead tumultuous followers with effect 
and courage; and his performance of official duty was charac- 
terized by the same sort of dogged vigor. 

Mr. Whiting's national pride was spirited. His tenure of 
the mayoralty included the exciting period of our war with 
Spain, and he was eager and effectively watchful that Pittsfield 
should fail at no point in patriotism and the display of it. The 
good name of the city was constantly dear to him. Other 
mayors may have brought to the office more initiative force and 
mental facility, but it is apparent that his enthusiasm and simple 
resolve to serve the city with the utmost of his skill and strength 
were of no small worth to the community. His sense of duty 
was tragically exemplified by the circumstances of his death, for, 
after bearing a heavy burden of ill health during many months of 
official labor, he was suddenly prostrated at his desk in the city 
hall, while presiding over a meeting; and he died two hours 
afterward, on August seventh, 1899. 

Hezekiah S. Russell, mayor in 1900 and 1901, was born in 



CONDUCT OF MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS, 1891-1916 125 

Pittsfield, December seventh, 1835. He was a son of Solomon L. 
Russell, and he thus fell heir to a warm affection for Pittsfield; 
but in his youth a spirit of adventure led him to the western 
frontier and to Australia, where, in the construction camps of 
railroad and telegraph lines, he learned the ways of rugged men. 
About the year 1860, Mr. Russell returned to his native town 
and established a shop for the manufacture of iron machinery 
and boilers; to this industry he devoted himself successfully 
until 1902, when he retired from active business. In 1887 and 
1888 he was one of the town's selectmen. He was a member, in 
1892, 1893, and 1894, of the city's board of public works. He 
died on May twelfth, 1914. 

His opinions were not pliable; and in governmental service 
he was sometimes hampered by a kind of overpositiveness. 
The worth of his contributions to town and city was chiefly prac- 
tical; he was likely to apply himself with more contentment to 
the execution than to the determination of municipal plans; 
and especially in the conduct of business having to do with 
public improvements his integrity and workmanlike sense were 
of uncommon value. 

To men of many sorts in Pittsfield, Mr. Russell was endeared 
by a helpful kindliness, by a frank pleasure in companionship, 
for the social instinct was strong in him, and by a bluff, but genial, 
independence of speech and bearing, which was a blended pro- 
duct, perhaps, of the frontier experience of his youth and of the 
village democracy of his early manhood. In his later years, 
which were bright with frequent testimony of popular regard, 
he represented the survival in Pittsfield of a distinctive type of 
that New England townsman who was imbued with a stalwart 
notion of equality, but by nature courteous, who was sternly 
averse to shirking any duties of a good citizen, but philosophically 
resolved at the same time to get due enjoyment and humor out of 
life as he went along. 

The practical results of the plan of local government adopted 
by Pittsfield in 1890 were never, in the first twenty-five years of 
its operation, so unsatisfactory to the citizens as to induce them 
to change it radically. In 1895, upon the recommendation of 
the city council, the state legislature passed an act revising 



126 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

Pittsfield's charter, but the changes were not material, except 
in providing for the consolidation of the sewer commission and 
the board of public works, and for an arrangement of electing 
councilmen, which insured constant membership in the lower 
board of some men of at least one year's experience in that body. 
In 1903 revision of the charter was again agitated, but a com- 
mittee of members of the city government and of private citizens, 
to which the matter was referred, was apparently convinced that 
a new charter was preferable to an amendment of the existing 
one; and accordingly, in 1904, the city council obtained from 
the legislature the passage of an act which framed a radically 
new charter, and stipulated that it should be submitted to the 
voters of Pittsfield twice, if by them rejected in the first instance. 

The proposed charter of 1904 established a city council of a 
single board of twenty-one aldermen, of whom seven were to be 
chosen by the entire electorate, centered a large measure of ad- 
ministrative authority in the mayor, and delegated to the people 
the election of the city clerk, city treasurer, city auditor, and 
the collector and assessors of taxes. The council's power to 
grant public franchises was by several provisions restricted; an 
effort was made to separate more sharply the legislative and ex- 
ecutive functions of the municipal government, and to facilitate 
the fixing of responsibility. To the mayor was given the power 
of appointment for three years of the superintendent of poor, 
the board of health, and the city physician, and for one year of 
the city solicitor and a single commissioner of public works. 

Both in 1904 and in 1905, this charter failed of popular ap- 
proval at the polls. The fact seems to be that the public mind 
judged the old charter to be defective in one respect only. Ex- 
perience had shown that the election of many ofiicials by a con- 
current, rather than a joint, vote of both boards of the city council 
was liable to result merely in a deadlock, which sometimes might 
seriously impede the conduct of business. It was maintained in 
1904, however, that this difficulty might be remedied more easily 
than by throwing overboard the entire charter, under which it 
was possible, and by experimenting with innovations so com- 
plete as those contained in the plan of city government then pro- 
posed. Furthermore, the suggested concentration of authority 



CONDUCT OF MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS, 1891-1916 127 

in the mayor and his commissioner of public works was not re- 
garded with general complacency. The negative votes against 
the new charter were, in 1904, 2,229 to 1,457 in favor, and in 1905 
they were 1,590 to 1,222, while in the latter year there were cast 
1,721 blanks. The electorate was obviously uninterested. 

In 1910, however, a lively movement toward alteration of 
the charter began, in the course of which was exhibited more sig- 
nificantly the popular opinion of the conduct of municipal affairs 
since the incorporation of the city. Having advised charter 
revision in his inaugural address, the mayor of 1910, William H. 
Maclnnis, appointed by order of the city council a committee of 
thirty-three to consider the subject. Only two of the committee 
were members of the city government. Under the auspices of 
the committee, a charter was drafted. Its salient features were 
a single board of seven aldermen, whose function was strictly 
legislative, and a mayor liberally invested with executive powers 
and authority to appoint executive officers. This instrument 
was endorsed by the city council, and permission was sought 
from the legislature to submit the legalization of it to the vote of 
Pittsfield. The General Court, in April, 1910, referred to the 
succeeding legislature the petition of the Pittsfield charter com- 
mittee, and further progress was necessarily delayed. 

Early in 1911, another petition was presented to the legis- 
lature by Pittsfield citizens desirous of a commission form of 
municipal government, wherein five commissioners, elected at 
large, should exercise all the powers of the mayor, city council, 
and board of public works, and which should embody the prin- 
ciples of popular referendum and initiative, and of the recall of 
elective officers. On February tenth, 1911, the legislative com- 
mittee on cities visited Pittsfield and held a public hearing on 
the charter question. There the advocates of the proposed 
charter of 1910 and those of the commission form offered their 
claims, and ground was taken also by a third party, which ad- 
hered to the existing charter, with slight modifications. A bill, 
after a somewhat troubled experience in both houses of the 
General Court, was finally signed by the governor on July nine- 
teenth, 1911, by which it was provided that the adoption of one 
of these three plans of local government should be decided by 
ballot of the voters of the city, at the following state election. 



128 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

Pittsfield's discussion of the subject now assumed the vivacity, 
and at times the heat, of a rousing pohtical campaign. There 
can be little doubt either that the people wished to be informed 
or that they were informed as to the merits and demerits of each 
of the three plans. In effect, however, the debate finally so 
shaped itself that it was a popular examination of the working of 
the bicameral charter in Pittsfield, and of the results there 
achieved under it. Against the old charter were advanced the 
arguments that it fused legislative with executive authority, 
that its two boards and its method of choosing administrative 
oflBcers invited manifestations of partisanship and factional 
jealousy, and that under it, when things went wrong, the public 
had no means of imputing the blame to the true source. Most of 
the voters, nevertheless, were inclined to ask themselves in what 
concrete instance during the twenty years under the old charter, 
imperfect though it might be, Pittsfield's municipal interests had 
signally suffered, and to cast their ballots according to the weight 
of the answer. Thus the outcome at the polls in November, 
1911, may be considered as the community's judgment, not 
alone of the comparative merits of the three proposed plans, but 
of the quality of municipal administration by Pittsfield citizen- 
ship. In favor of retaining the existing charter, so amended as 
to preclude the necessity of choosing many officials by concurrent 
vote of the two boards of the council, there were cast 2,805 ballots, 
while 1,519 voters opposed its readoption. As a secondary 
proposition, the commission form of government was favored by 
1,462; the single board plan, which had become known as the 
Quincy charter, received 1,159 affirmative votes. The manner in 
which the threefold question was officially presented at the polls 
was not quite unambiguous, but the numerical results made it 
clear that a radical change of charter was not deemed necessary. 

Most of the questions similarly submitted by authority of 
the state to the popular referendum in Pittsfield have received 
an affirmative decision by the electorate with a regularity some- 
what curious, and with a generous accompaniment of blank bal- 
lots not gratifying to the ardent publicist. Except in 1893 and 
1894, the decision of the city election was in favor of granting 
licenses for the sale of intoxicating liquor. 



CONDUCT OF MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS, 1891-1916 129 

The vote of Pittsfield was cast for the Democratic nominee 
for President of the United States at the national election of 
1892, and for the Republican presidential candidate in 1896, 
1900, 1904, 1908, and 1912. In 1892, nevertheless, the city 
chose a Republican mayor, and Democratic mayors were elected 
in 1908 and in 1912. So far as sheer figures and dates are indica- 
tive, the intrusion of national politics into the administration of 
municipal aflFairs was not violent; nor, indeed, was the operation 
therein of any factional or personal partisanship so patently in- 
jurious as to drive Pittsfield to that needful self-display of 
smirched municipal linen, which is an unhappy episode in the 
history of too many American cities. Strife of faction at Pitts- 
field's city hall has sometimes discouraged competency, some- 
times impeded progress, but consequences publicly and seriously 
disastrous have been withheld. 



CHAPTER IX 

SCHOOLS. 

THE condition of Pittsfield's public schools in 1876, and the 
curious discord concerning them into which the communi- 
ty had allowed itself to drift, can be understood only by 
recalling some of the town's previous experience in the support 
and management of free education. 

It is necessary in the first place to remember that for many 
years the public school system in Pittsfield had been shot through 
and through by village politics. This was the case in many New 
England towns; Pittsfield's case was peculiarly aggravated. As 
early as 1781, the school question was turned into a battlefield 
for political partisans. The newly constituted state government 
required every town of the size of Pittsfield to maintain a gram- 
mar school on penalty of indictment and fine. Pittsfield's im- 
poverished town government in 1781 was Whig, and it failed to 
comply with the grammar school law for the perfectly good reason 
of lack of funds. The excuse was one which the state authorities 
in those days of almost universal financial distress might readily 
have accepted; but nevertheless the Tory politicians of the vil- 
lage promptly tried to discredit the local Whig administration by 
pressing the grand jury to indict the town for non-compliance, 
and they inserted an article in the town meeting warrant of 1781 
"to see if the town will raise money to set up a grammar school 
to save the town from fine". A hot and protracted political 
fight ensued, in which the voters wholly lost sight of the educa- 
tional interests involved. The Whig majority opposed a gram- 
mar school long after it was financially possible, and merely be- 
cause it was advocated by their Tory assailants. 

Thus at an early period the school question, according to a 
modern phrase, "got into politics", whence it was not destined 
soon to emerge. Pittsfield was an isolated village, where political 



SCHOOLS 131 

feuds were bitter and inheritable almost beyond belief. The 
ancient grammar school quarrel outlived both the old Whig and 
Tory parties; it injured the cause of public education for at least 
half a century; and it was revived, with much of its original 
acrimony, by the local agitation in 1849 which resulted in the 
erection of the first high school building. 

It should be borne in mind, too, that the New England dis- 
trict system of maintenance and control of the common schools 
had been exceedingly popular in Pittsfield and most agreeable to 
the political temperament of its people. Although, in 1850, an 
act of the General Court had enabled any town to abolish its 
school districts and to take possession of their property under cer- 
tain prescribed rules, Pittsfield steadfastly declined to do so. Not 
until compelled by the state legislature in 1869, did the town re- 
linquish the system, and then with regretful disapproval which 
affected the popular mind for several years thereafter. In 1871, 
the legislature passed a law permitting towns in which the 
school district system had been abolished by the act of 1869 to 
reinstate that system by a two-thirds vote; and the Pittsfield 
town meeting of that year favored reinstatement by a vote of 
61 to 37— only slightly less than the requisite majority. The 
abandonment of independent school districts had seemed to 
many citizens like parting with an essential prerogative of self- 
government, and in 1876 they were still in a hostile mood toward 
the town system of schools by which the old system had been 
superseded. 

Their attitude was not unnatural. Pittsfield had thirteen 
school districts in 1869, and several of them were as rich and 
populous as an ordinary Berkshire village. It has been plausibly 
maintained, indeed, that in Massachusetts, until the middle of 
the last century, the school district, and not the town, was the 
real political unit of the Commonwealth. In school district 
meetings, many men had learned their first lessons in the trans- 
action of public business and had made their first voyage on the 
cross seas of public debate. The districts were, in one sense, 
miniature republics, sovereign states, and they could not be 
wiped out of existence without provoking among their citizens a 
fondness for criticizing adversely, and perhaps unjustly, the 



132 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

results under the central authority, which had displaced them. 

Moreover, the conduct of school affairs, for a few years after 
1869, was not so manifestly efficient and harmonious as to enlist 
friends for the new regime, although it was upheld by such earnest 
committeemen as Charles B. Redfield and William R. Plunkett. 
At the annual town meeting of 1868, the town instructed its 
school committee of nine members to employ, for the first time, 
a superintendent of schools, and the committee accordingly en- 
gaged Lebbeus Scott. Mr. Scott was a conscientious official, 
but had he been Horace Mann himself, it is not likely that his 
efforts would have been hospitably acclaimed by the unawed 
electorates of the thirteen school districts, accustomed to super- 
intend their own concerns. The town, at the annual meeting of 
1869 and in spite of a forcible appeal by James D. Colt, refused 
to make an appropriation for the salary of a superintendent; 
and the school committee of that year was compelled to put into 
operation the new system of schools without the aid of anybody 
who could devote his entire time and energy to the task. 

In 1871, however, the town instructed the committee to em- 
ploy one of its members as a superintendent, and Dr. John M. 
Brewster was selected. His period of service, which continued 
for five years, was for him one of stress and storm. Dr. Brewster, 
in office, was an idealist, who appreciated fully the importance 
of his position. He was not a pacificator, capable of smoothing 
the road for an unpopular innovation. After he had been super- 
intendent for a year, the town meeting refused to make provision 
for his salary. Mr. Redfield and Mr. Plunkett promptly de- 
clared that they would, in that case, withdraw from the school 
committee; and the meeting as promptly reconsidered and re- 
versed its vote. Dr. Brewster's salary by a vote of the town in 
1873 was fixed at $2,000. The next year it was cut in half. 
The committee again stood by him, and in 1875 found a way to 
increase his compensation to $1,500; whereupon the town, at the 
annual town meeting of 1876, declined again to appropriate 
money for the employment of any superintendent. Dr. Brewster 
celebrated his retirement to private life by telling his adversaries, 
in a caustic letter, exactly what he thought of them. "I believe," 
he wrote, "that the majority of our citizens earnestly desire that 



SCHOOLS 133 

their public schools shall not continue to be made, upon the 
annual recurrence of town meeting, mere toys and playthings in 
the hands of educational sceptics and ultra-economists." 

A share of Dr. Brewster's troubles was probably due to the 
fact that upon him devolved much of the thankless business of 
grading the former district schools. Before 1869, all of the com- 
mon schools in District No. 1, which included the central portion 
of the main village, had been graded, with a single exception; 
but elsewhere the ungraded system ruled. That system was 
highly convenient, because scholars of all ages might always, 
under it, attend the school nearest home. Educationally, it was 
wasteful of time and effort. But it was an inherent part of the 
school district plan; as such it was long and jealously cherished 
by public regard in Pittsfield; and the reformer who attempted 
to eradicate it could not hope for popularity. Nevertheless, a 
comprehensive scheme of gradation was initiated in 1874, and 
two years later only one-seventh of the pupils attended ungraded 
schools. 

Thus the town's committee to which was entrusted the man- 
agement of public education in 1876 faced a difficult problem. A 
long series of wrangles over school affairs had made public opin- 
ion of them irritable. That antagonism to progressive educa- 
tional methods, which must be expected anywhere, had been in 
Pittsfield exaggerated. Not only had the town, somewhat angri- 
ly, denied to the committee a professional superintendent, but 
also it had reduced the total appropriation for the maintenance 
of schools to $24,600, a sum less by $6,400 than that voted in the 
previous year. The sudden retrenchment cannot be ascribed 
solely to hard times. 

A record of the school year ending in 1876 shows that there 
were then in the high school 65 pupils and three teachers; in the 
four grammar schools, 333 pupils and twelve teachers; in the 
eleven intermediate schools, 533 pupils and fourteen teachers; in 
the fourteen primary schools, 881 pupils and fifteen teachers; 
and in the eleven ungraded schools, 314 pupils. The number of 
teachers in the ungraded schools is not stated. Presumably it 
was eleven, which would make the aggregate number of teachers 
fifty-five. The membership of pupils in the forty-one schools 



134 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

was 2,126. There were twenty-five schoolhouses owned by the 
town. 

Nothing can be more obvious than that a close and daily 
supervision was essential in order to obtain even passable eflB- 
ciency from a system of this size. Except in high schools and 
less frequently in grammar schools, the business of a teacher in 
public schools had hardly attained the dignity of a permanent 
profession. There had been many faithful and competent 
teachers in the district schools, but stability of personnel and of 
method had been lacking. The report of the school committee 
of Pittsfield in 1839 noted as an unusual fact that the same teach- 
er had officiated in one of the district schools for so many as 
three successive terms. Although nominally unified, the public 
schools of Pittsfield in 1876 still needed the coherence imparted 
by a fixed and harmonious control, and, lacking the advantage of 
it then, the whole cause of free education might have suffered 
greatly for several years, because of the peculiarly sensitive state 
of the popular mind. 

By good fortune, a controlling hand was found of the right 
sort. The chairman of the school committee of 1876 was William 
B. Rice. As chairman also of the executive sub-committee, Mr. 
Rice assumed in effect all of the duties of a superintendent of 
schools, and he performed them with discretion and diligence. 
In 1877, the town gave the committee authority to employ a 
superintendent at a salary of $800, but the place could not be 
filled at that figure, and Mr. Rice continued to act as superin- 
tendent. In 1879 he accepted the office formally, and held it 
until 1885, when he was succeeded therein by Thomas H. Day, a 
member of the school committee. 

It would be difficult to overrate the value of Mr. Rice's con- 
nection with the public schools of Pittsfield at this critical stage 
of their development. He was a practical man, whom the people 
already knew well, and he was far removed from the type of re- 
forming faddist, so abhorred by the hard-headed voters of a 
town meeting. Nevertheless, his realization was complete of 
the need of school reform, of progress, and of advanced methods of 
instruction; and that Pittsfield might obtain them he kept ham- 
mering away with a pertinacity which seemed to defy discourage- 



SCHOOLS 135 

ment. Sentences from his report of 1878 indicate the liberal 
breadth of his ideas of public education. "To assign lessons and 
hear recitations is barely to touch the outside of the true sphere 

of the teacher's work It seems to me that many, in 

discussing the public school question, almost entirely lose sight 
of the great question, why public schools should exist at all. . . 
To look upon the public schools as designed merely to fit children 
to get on in life, is to underestimate the immensely important 
interests which the public has in their maintenance." 

Retaining always his keen, benignant, and salutary regard 
for free education, William B. Rice served Pittsfield as a school 
committeeman from 1872 to 1884 and from 1891 to 1911. The 
public schools of town and city have never had a more devoted 
and helpful friend. 

The superintendency of Mr. Rice over the town's school af- 
fairs marked the beginning of a beneficial change, not only in the 
internal workings of the system, but also in the willingness with 
which the voters supported it. He recommended a liberal com- 
pliance with the statute concerning the provision of the free 
textbooks in 1878, and the town meeting of 1879 authorized the 
committee so to issue them. The annual appropriations for the 
maintenance of the schools were slowly but steadily increased. 
It was not so easy, however, to obtain appropriations for new 
schoolhouses. 

The crusade which broke down much of the public apathy 
concerning the town's schoolhouses was led by James W. Hull, 
who was chairman of the school committee from 1877 to 1882, 
and it was strongly promoted by his associates. Their attack 
upon this indifference at the town meeting of 1878 was resolute 
and brisk. Several schoolhouses were overcrowded, and, from 
a sanitary point of view, almost medieval. The town meeting 
serenely declined to take action. In the following autumn, the 
work of the Orchard Street school was interrupted by a dangerous 
epidemic of disease which was clearly attributable to conditions 
in the building. The committee's indignant reference to the 
building in its report of 1879 made a brief excursion into the 
ironical. "Towns and committees" it declared, "have no power 
to set aside natural law." The town meeting of the same year, 



136 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

whether stung by this shaft or not, voted money for a new 
schoolhouse on Orchard Street. The committee in charge pro- 
vided a brick structure of a single story and four rooms, which, 
with additions made in 1895, still serves the city. The erection 
of this building and in 1876 that of the high school building on 
South Street, which was destroyed by fire in 1895, signalized the 
commencement of a new era of schoolhouse design and construc- 
tion; and until 1884 these were the only school edifices of brick 
in the city. 

The main diflBculties in providing new schoolhouses were 
those of the determination and of the expense of proper sites for 
them. The numerous small school lots inherited from the district 
system had been purchased in the days when apparently any 
land was good enough for a schoolhouse, if within a convenient 
radius of it there were forty or fifty school children of all ages. 
In the meantime, the value of land had been multiplied in the 
thickly settled parts of the town where existed the greatest need 
of modern schoolhouses; and the consolidation of schools, de- 
sirable both from an educational and an economic standpoint, 
was hindered by the lack of foresight of a previous generation of 
voters. 

The school committee in 1880 began to urge the dedication 
of the present Common to school purposes, and this project was 
recommended also to the town by a special committee appointed 
in 1881 to consider the matter of sites; but the measure was not 
approved, although the voters were now appreciative of the ne- 
cessity. The school population was increasing at a rate which 
would fill three or four additional rooms a year, and singular ex- 
pedients were employed, as when the congestion in the Silver 
Lake school was relieved by removing a number of its pupils to a 
room in a block on Fenn Street, under the same roof with such 
academic inspirations as a billiard saloon and a roller skating 
rink. 

The town was no longer disposed to view the situation with 
complacency. In 1883, a new schoolhouse was authorized at 
Pontoosuc and another at the corner of Fenn and Second Streets. 
The former was ready for occupancy in 1884, and the latter in 
1885. New schoolhouses at the Junction and on Linden Street 



SCHOOLS 137 

were built in 1888 and 1889, and one on Winter Street at Morn- 
ingside in 1890. These buildings were adequate and creditable; 
and while it cannot be said that, at the time when the town in 
1891 became a city, the equipment of schoolhouses was what 
the public deserved to have, it is true that the voters at town 
meetings after 1880 had displayed a spirit distinctly more 
earnest than that of their predecessors in supporting public edu- 
cation. The town's last annual appropriation for the mainte- 
nance of schools was $48,000. 

Upon Mr. Hull's retirement from the office of chairman of 
the town's school committee in 1882, he was succeeded by Dr. 
Abner M. Smith, who served until 1885. Dr. Smith was follow- 
ed, for a period of three years, by Dr. William M. Mercer. In 
1888, Col. Walter Cutting was chairman, and, in 1889, Harlan H. 
Ballard, who served until the expiration of the town government. 
Thomas H, Day was superintendent of schools, following Mr. 
Rice, from 1886 to 1891. The importance to the town of the 
duties undertaken by these men and their associates on the 
school committees is indicated by the facts that, between 1882 
and 1891, the school enrolment increased from 2,783 to 3,422, the 
number of schools from forty-three to sixty-three, and the num- 
ber of teachers from sixty-two to eighty-six. They instituted a 
training school for teachers, revived evening schools, which had 
been abandoned in 1876, and broadened the field of usefulness 
of the common schools by encouraging instruction in mechanical 
and free-hand drawing, vocal music, and natural science. Nor 
should it be forgotten, in recording their efforts to establish a 
right and liberal policy, that Pittsfield's latterly overgrown and 
overhurried town meetings did not always allow a forum adapted 
to the discussion of educational theory and practice. Neverthe- 
less, on penalty of decreased appropriations, it was necessary for 
the school committeemen and their allies, in open meeting, to 
defend progressive methods of instruction and school organiza- 
tion against all comers, to satisfy the scruples of honest voters 
whose ideas of the scope of public education had been formed in 
the rural district schools of their boyhood, and even sometimes 
to placate then and there an oratorical father whose children 
had a grievance against a teacher or a textbook. 



138 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

The city's first school committee, in 1891, had for its chair- 
man Joseph Tucker, who held the office until 1896. William 
B. Rice was the chairman in 1896, 1897 and 1898. In 1899, 
Judge Tucker resumed the chairmanship of the committee, and 
therein served continuously for six years. He was succeeded in 
1905 by William L. Adam, who was chairman until 1914. In 
1914 and 1915, Joseph E. Peirson was the official head of the 
school committee, which, under the municipal charter, consisted 
of fourteen members, two being elected by each ward of the city. 
Beginning in 1891 and continuing through 1915, William Nugent 
was a member of the committee, and its secretary. 

The committee of 1891 soon lost by resignation the services 
as superintendent of Mr. Day, and A. M. Edwards was engaged 
to replace him. Among the salaried superintendents of Pittsfield 
schools, Mr. Edwards was the first who brought to the office any 
previous technical training in his professional duties, and who 
had not been a member of the committee which employed him. 
He served for three years. In 1894, Dr. Eugene Bouton accepted 
the position and held it until 1905, when he was succeeded by 
Charles A. Byram. Mr. Byram's tenure of the office ceased in 
1909; Clarence J. Russell performed the duties of "acting super- 
intendent" from September 1909, to June 1910; and upon the 
latter date Clair G. Persons, who still holds the position, became 
superintendent. 

Many new features characterized the progress of the public 
schools of Massachusetts after 1890. Some of them were the 
enrichment of courses of study without loss of thoroughness, a 
greater respect for the pupil's individuality, an extraordinary de- 
velopment of the high school system, an increased demand for 
trained skill and earnestness in supervision and in teachers of all 
grades, and a remarkable advance in schoolhouse construction, 
sanitation, and equipment. Along these lines, the schools of 
Pittsfield moved forward; but, somewhat as the schools of the 
town had been often handicapped by the indifference of the 
voters at town meeting, so now the schools of the city were to be 
burdened by the unavoidable difficulties due to an abnormally 
rapid gain of population. The number of children of school age 
was, in 1890, 3,276; in 1915 it was 7,463. 



SCHOOLS 139 

These difficulties were clearly apprehended by the mayor of 
1894, John C. Crosby, whose inaugural address advocated a new 
high school in a central location and laid emphasis on the general 
need of new schoolhouses. A new schoolhouse had been occupied 
at Stearnsville in 1893, but the buildings in the center of the city 
had become inadequate. In March, 1895, the burning of the 
high school building on South Street complicated the problem. 
Judge Crosby, who was mayor again in 1895, again pressed forci- 
bly the necessity of new schoolhouses; the school committee ap- 
peared before the city council and explained the physical plight 
of the schools; and in May money was appropriated for three 
new buildings, with an aggregate capacity of twenty-two rooms 
and at an aggregate cost of over $100,000. The emergency, 
when at last appreciated, was squarely met. 

With the erection of these buildings was established in Pitts- 
field the excellent custom of bestowing upon the more important 
schoolhouses the names of distinguished citizens. Of the school- 
houses authorized in 1895, the Solomon L. Russell School was 
built on Peck's Road, the Charles B. Redfield School on Elizabeth 
Street, and the George N. Briggs School at the corner of West 
and John Streets. The Russell School and the Redfield School 
were opened in the fall of 1896. The Briggs School, owing to 
vexatious delay in construction, was not ready until a year later. 
Having authorized this liberal expenditure, however, the city 
council of 1895 still faced the imperative need of a new building 
for the high school, and plans for it were at once initiated on 
a similar generous scale of appropriation. The original cost to 
the city of the high school building between Second Street and the 
Common, opened in the spring of 1898, was $170,000. The cost 
to the town of its immediate predecessor on South Street had 
been $16,000 in 1876. 

Thus in 1895 the city was compelled to shoulder in one year 
financial burdens, for educational purposes, of which a large 
share might have been distributed over several previous years; 
and the troublesome experience was not repeated, although the 
necessity for new schoolhouses and for the enlargement of exist- 
ing buildings soon began again to be pressing. In 1905, a 
spacious and handsome new building, to be known as the WiUiam 



140 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

M, Mercer School, was dedicated at the corner of First and 
Orchard Streets. In 1908, the Henry L. Dawes School on Elm 
Street was opened; and the William R. Plunkett School in 1909 
was built at the corner of First and Fenn Streets, of which the 
cost was $80,000. In 1910, the William Nugent School was 
opened at the Junction, having been erected to replace there the 
schoolhouse destroyed by fire in April, 1909. On Onota Street, 
the William Francis Bartlett School was ready for occupancy in 
1912. The Crane School in 1913 was opened at Morningside, on 
Dartmouth Street; and the Pomeroy School, on West Housa- 
tonic Street, was completed in 1915. 

The Winter Street building, erected in 1890, was by the school 
committee in 1899 officially named the William B. Rice School; 
in 1907 the name of the Joseph Tucker School was given to the 
schoolhouse on Linden Street, of which the capacity had been 
greatly increased since its construction in 1889; and also in 1907 
the building which had been erected in 1885 at Fenn and Second 
Streets received the title of the Franklin F. Read School. 

The town meeting voters in 1876 could not regard the Pitts- 
field high school with complete friendliness. There the annual 
cost of instruction alone was then more than $40 for each pupil, 
and the educational function of the school was not very clearly 
appreciated. Probably most of those who finished its course 
did so with the intention of becoming teachers. In 1875, and 
again in 1878, the small graduating class was composed entirely of 
girls. A few boys were able there to prepare themselves for col- 
lege, but the vast majority of Pittsfield's public school pupils 
never saw, and never purposed to see, the inside of a high school. 
To many voters this school seemed, therefore, like a useless and 
expensive superfluity, and, had not its continuance been pre- 
scribed by statute, a motion to abolish it between 1870 and 1880 
must have found support. 

In 1880 the regular course was one of four years, and during 
the school year ending in 1884 the average daily attendance ex- 
ceeded one hundred for the first time. An increase of attendance 
after this was constantly maintained. The institution began to 
be recognized as an essential and important part of the public 
school system. Gradually the curriculum was made more 



SCHOOLS 141 

elastic. In 1888, the pupil had a choice of four courses of study. 
These were a classical course, preparatory for college; a scientific 
course, differing from the classical mainly in the substitution of 
the sciences for Greek; an English course, differing from the 
scientific in allowing the pupil a choice between Latin, French, 
or German in the first and second years, and in the substitution 
of English for a foreign language in the third and fourth years; 
and lastly a business course, designed for those who could not 
remain in the school to complete one of the four-year courses. 
The average daily attendance first touched two hundred in 1894. 

In the following year, however, the educational and numerical 
development of the school was rudely checked by the destruction 
by fire of the South Street building. The disaster was so com- 
plete that the only salvage of school equipment was a piano, a 
chair, and a teacher's desk. Under these circumstances, com- 
mendable energy was displayed by the committee and by the 
faculty of the school. A floor was hired and furnished in the 
block, then unfinished, on the west corner of Clapp Avenue and 
West Street; and there the school resumed its sessions in less 
than a month after the fire. These makeshift quarters were oc- 
cupied for two school years, and in the fall of 1897 the larger 
part of the high school was housed in the building on School 
Street, thus returning temporarily to its old home after an inter- 
val of a quarter-century. 

During this migratory period, the work of the institution was, 
of course, conducted with great difficulty. Laboratory instruc- 
tion was almost impossible. That the school was able to pre- 
serve a considerable measure of usefulness and a commendable 
measure of morale is to the credit both of the teachers and the 
scholars. 

Their trials were aggravated by many unforeseen delays in 
the erection of the new building on Second Street. Retarded 
by the necessity of righting defective workmanship, the progress 
of construction was slow, and the building was not available for 
occupancy until 1898. It was a spacious and conveniently ar- 
ranged edifice of light brick, trimmed with marble and terra cotta, 
and in dimensions 135 feet by 137. Its three floors might ac- 
commodate 600 pupils, with the recitation rooms, laboratories, 



142 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

and accessories demanded by modern requirements for high 
school work. An auditorium on the second floor seated 700 
people. The first graduation exercises therein were conducted 
on June twenty- third, 1898, when forty-four students received 
diplomas. In previous years, the exercises had been held usually 
at the Academy of Music. 

At first, the new building was able to accommodate schools 
of a lower grade as well as those of the high school, but so ex- 
traordinarily rapid was the latter's growth that it soon monopol- 
ized and overflowed its quarters. In 1899 the enrolment of the 
high school was 247; in 1909 it was 455; in the fall term of 1911 
it was 705. In 1912, the commercial section was transferred to 
the Read School on Fenn Street. In the winter term of 1914, 
the enrolment of the high school was 945, its actual membership 
was 891, its faculty numbered thirty-six, and the relief afforded 
by utilizing the Read building had, in the words of the principal's 
report, "ceased to exist". This remarkable expansion of the 
high school in recent years was accompanied, if not accelerated, 
by several noteworthy changes of method and organization. 
The so-called business course was greatly strengthened, depart- 
mental subdivisions were more effectively arranged, a scheme of 
semi-annual promotions was introduced, and a rational effort 
was made to develop that elusive quality known as school spirit 
in both students and instructors. 

In 1876 the principal was Albert Tolman, who was succeeded 
by Earl G. Baldwin in 1878, by Edward H. Rice in 1881, by 
John B. Welch in 1887, by Charles A. Byram in 1891, and by 
William D. Goodwin in 1904. Harry E. Pratt, the present 
principal, followed Mr. Goodwin in 1911. 

Later advances achieved by the city's general system of pub- 
lic schools were most conspicuous, perhaps, in 1911, a year which 
marked the introduction of a more flexible gradation and of the 
physical examination of school children. At the same time, in- 
struction in the manual arts was somewhat forwarded; but this 
department of public education was peculiarly discouraged by 
lack of adequate means and facilities, although a one-year's 
course of manual training for boys was established in 1909, and 
for girls a course of domestic science in 1913. 



SCHOOLS 143 

The work of the evening schools, accentuated in value by the 
increasing number of foreign-born laborers desirous of learning 
to read and write English, was continued so successfully that in 
1913 the maximum attendance therein was 660. 

A training school for teachers, which was initiated apparently 
in 1880, was in 1905 discontinued. More than one-half of the 
teaching force of the public schools of Pittsfield had been gradu- 
ated from it, under the instruction, after 1888, of Miss Arabella 
Roach, at the Orchard Street building, and it had served well the 
purpose for which it was intended. The school committee of 
1905, however, was of the opinion that the convenient efficiencies 
of the State Normal Schools made its continuance of questionable 
value. 

With far less unanimity of opinion did committee after com- 
mittee regard the question of kindergarten instruction. It was 
seriously suggested first by the committee of 1893; an official ap- 
propriation was not made until 1902 for a kindergarten; and 
then the Pittsfield Kindergarten Association, which had main- 
tained a school at Russell's, turned over to the city its equip- 
ment. The work of this organization and, indeed, its assump- 
tion and enlargement by the city are to be ascribed chiefly to the 
enthusiasm in the cause of public kindergartens of Mrs. William 
L. Adam, who continued to devote herself to their interests for 
several years after they had become a part of the municipal 
system of schools. 

The number of teachers which the system employed in 1891, 
the first year of the city form of government, was eighty-six. 
In 1915 the number of teachers was 203. The appropriations 
voted by the first city council for the maintenance of schools in 
1891 amounted to $54,000. The city's appropriation for school 
purposes in 1915 was $252,000. 

An important share of the duty of providing free education 
for the youth of Pittsfield was assumed in 1897 by the Sisters of 
St. Joseph, who opened a free academy at the convent on North 
Street in September of that year. Two years later, in 1899, the 
building of the St. Joseph's Parochial School was erected on First 
Street, containing ten classrooms, and an assembly hall. Begin- 
ning its sessions there in September, 1899, the school had an 



144 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

enrolment during its first year of approximately 470 pupils, and 
its work has been of increasing value and usefulness to the com- 
munity. The enrolment for the school year 1914-1915 included 
688 pupils, arranged in nine grades and a high school, where the 
course was one of four years' instruction. In effect, the courses 
of study have conformed to those afforded by the public schools 
maintained by the city. The principals and teachers have been 
the Sisters of St. Joseph; and the successive principals have been 
Sister M. Irene (1899), Sister Clara Agnes (1900), Sister St. 
Thomas (1905), Sister M. Irene (1911), and Sister M. Raphael 
(1914). 

In 1876 the famous private school for girls at Maplewood, 
having been known for twenty years as Maplewood Institute, 
was slowly expiring, although the courageous and somewhat 
pathetic struggle to keep it alive was not abandoned until 1884, 
when a school met for the last time within the walls which had 
sheltered an academical institution since 1827. Rev. Charles 
V. Spear had become its sole owner in 1864 by purchasing the 
land and buildings for $27,000. The scholars, many of whom 
came from distant parts of the country, then numbered 200, 
and both in popularity and educational value the Institute was 
the equal of any girls' school in New England. Immediately, 
however, the shadow of evil fortune began to enshroud it. Two 
invasions of its buildings by epidemic disease, in 1864 and 1866, 
weakened public confidence. Having partly regained its pres- 
tige, the school with 150 pupils in 1873 was so staggered by the 
financial panic of that year that thereafter its decadence was 
never again checked, and competition with its rivals at Pough- 
keepsie and Northampton was out of the question. In 1883, 
Mr. Spear, who seems gallantly to have expended his mental 
and physical energy in the losing fight, leased the institution to 
Louis C. Stanton, a member of his teaching staff. Mr. Stanton's 
endeavor was soon concluded. The property then was presented 
by Mr. Spear to Oberlin College in Ohio, with the hope, perhaps, 
that the college might be able to revive the fame and prosperity 
of the Institute. This the collegiate authorities were unwilling 
to attempt. In 1887 they leased the establishment to Arthur 
W. Plumb, who transformed it into a summer hotel. For a 



SCHOOLS 145 

similar purpose it had been utilized by evanescent tenants for 
several previous seasons. Mr. Plumb purchased the land and 
buildings in 1889. 

The Maplewood Association, composed of alumnae of the 
Institute and organized in New York City in 1900, cherishes 
warmly the memories and spirit of the school. It held its first 
annual reunion at the present Maplewood on June seventh, 1900. 

Rev. Charles V. Spear died. May tenth, 1891, at Constanti- 
nople. He was born in the town of Randolph, now Holbrook, 
Massachusetts, November thirteenth, 1825, and was graduated 
in 1846 from Amherst College. Soon after graduation he came 
to Pittsfield to teach at the Institute, then conducted by Rev. 
Wellington Hart Tyler, and to study theology under Rev. John 
Todd, He was licensed to preach in 1851, and for three years 
was in charge of a church at Sudbury, Massachusetts, but he 
resumed his connection with the school at Maplewood at about 
the time when Rev. J. Holmes Agnew became its proprietor, in 
1854. Mr. Spear was for thirty years a helpful citizen of Pitts- 
field, and served the community as president of the Library As- 
sociation and as a trustee of its successor, the Berkshire Athe- 
naeum, He was a cultured man, of high and pure ideals. In 
his later years, he fell heir to a large estate and was a generous 
benefactor of Oberlin College, to which he gave a library and a 
supporting endowment; of the latter, the Maplewood property 
was a part. 

The Institute was reanimated in 1867 by the advent of Ben- 
jamin C. Blodgett as head of the department of music; indeed, 
that department was judged to be the chief attraction of the 
school, Mr, Blodgett, however, seceded in 1878, and established 
a music school of his own on Wendell Avenue, in the house built 
by Gen, William Francis Bartlett. By his work there, as well as 
at Maplewood, Mr, Blodgett, stimulated in the town of his time 
a fondness for good music, of which the influence may be said 
still to linger. In 1881, he left Pittsfield to accept the duties of 
professor of music at Smith College, For some years, however, 
after he had ceased to be a resident of Pittsfield he was able to 
give to the pupils of Miss Salisbury's school on South Street the 
benefit of his talent for musical instruction and criticism. 



146 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

Miss Mary E. Salisbury, of Providence, Rhode Island, ac- 
quired in 1871 the ownership of the private school for girls which 
had been conducted in Pittsfield since 1845 by Miss Clara Wells. 
When its management was assumed by Miss Salisbury, who had 
been Miss Wells's assistant, the school was housed in the brick 
building at the north corner of Reed and South Streets, which 
had sheltered a boys' boarding school from 1826 to 1852. Under 
Miss Salisbury's efficient, gracious, and affectionate direction, her 
school for girls prospered notably. In 1875 the building was en- 
larged, but it was not long before admission was sought annually 
by more scholars than could be accommodated. Nevertheless, 
Miss Salisbury, a firm believer in the personal element in educa- 
tion, quietly declined to allow the school to outgrow the sphere 
of her intimate supervision. A department of day scholars, 
which included young boys, was liberally patronized, and thus 
Miss Salisbury came to be endeared to many Pittsfield house- 
holds. In 1898, honored and beloved, she resigned her work, in 
which she had labored with rare singleness of purpose for more 
than twenty-five years. 

Miss Salisbury's successor in the South Street building was 
Miss Mira H. Hall, who there opened her day and boarding 
school for girls in September, 1898. In 1889, an additional 
house was rented on Reed Street; in 1900, the school was moved 
to Elmwood, the former home of Edward Learned. Miss Hall, 
nine years afterward, purchased from the heirs of Col. Walter 
Cutting the house and residential property once occupied by 
Col. Cutting on Holmes Road, and there reopened her school in 
the fall of 1909. The pupils of her successful boarding school 
numbered seventy -five in 1915. 

Of private schools for boys, Pittsfield was not fertile during 
the period surveyed by this volume. At Wendell Hall, Earl G. 
Baldwin for two years conducted a boys' school which was open- 
ed in 1881. In 1883, Rev. Joseph M. Turner estabHshed the 
St. Stephen's School for boys on Pomeroy Avenue, which after 
his death in 1887 was continued for a short time by Edward T. 
Fisher. From 1888 to 1893, Joseph E. Peirson was the proprie- 
tor and principal of a boys' school on West Housatonic Street. 
Arthur J. Clough, in 1895, opened the Berkshire School 



SCHOOLS 147 

for boys. This was maintained until 1903. At first it occupied 
the former Theodore Pomeroy homestead on West Housatonic 
Street; in 1901, Mr. Clough moved his school to the building on 
South Street, recently occupied by the schools of Miss Hall and 
Miss Salisbury. 



CHAPTER X 
CHURCHES— I. 

IN 1876 the community of Pittsfield and in particular its oldest 
religious society were still conscious of a peculiar sense of 
deprivation because of the loss by death in 1873 of an intel- 
lectual and religious leader so powerful as was Dr. John Todd. 
His ministry at the First Congregational Church had been one 
of thirty-one years. His fame through his writings was world- 
wide. Affectionately attached to Pittsfield, he had made his 
broad humanity a large part of the spiritual and social life of the 
town. It was not in his own pulpit, but at the South Congrega- 
tional Church, on June fifteenth, 1873, that Dr. Todd preached 
his last sermon. His immediate successors, in the parish which 
had known him so long and so proudly, were confronted by no 
ordinary task. 

Rev. Edward O. Bartlett, who had acted as Dr. Todd's suc- 
cessor after the veteran parson's retirement, was installed pastor 
of the First Church in 1873. It is probable that the church was 
not quite ready to commit definitely Dr. Todd's pulpit to an- 
other. Mr, Bartlett resigned his pastorate in 1876. After an 
interval of more than a year, the church and parish were at 
length able to make a final decision, and on July fifth, 1877, Rev. 
Jonathan L. Jenkins was installed in the pastorate. The choice 
was auspicious for both parish and town. Under the guidance 
of Dr. Jenkins, the affairs of the church flowed smoothly in 
their accustomed channels for fifteen years. He resigned his 
direction of them in 1892, and accepted a call which he received 
from the State Street Congregational Church in Portland, 
Maine, his native city. 

Dr. Jonathan L. Jenkins was born in Portland, November 
twenty-third, 1830, and was graduated from Yale College in 1851. 
He studied theology at Yale and at Andover; and before coming 



CHURCHES— I 149 

to Pittsfield he had served in successive pastorates at Lowell, 
Hartford, and Amherst, having presided over the Congregational 
church in Amherst for ten years. He thus assumed his ministry 
at Pittsfield in the full maturity of intellectual powers that had 
been sharpened by exercise in the cultivated and critical society 
of a New England college town. A man of distinguished aspect 
and uncommon personal charm, a preacher who imparted spirit- 
uality with pungent eloquence, a progressive and open-minded 
scholar, Dr. Jenkins was well-equipped to maintain the tradi- 
tional dignity and influence of Pittsfield's oldest pulpit. 

Dr. Jenkins identified himself as well with secular agencies 
for good. The cause of popular education found him a convinc- 
ing advocate. The beginnings of the Union for Home Work were 
inspired largely by him. His graceful presence and graceful 
speech were favorite features of public ceremonies and celebra- 
tions; on occasions less formal and more intimate, his talk was 
witty, amiable, and suggestive; and he had a genius for the con- 
cise and sympathetic phrase, whether spoken or written. His 
citizenship was a stimulation to many of the higher and uplifting 
interests of the town. 

After leaving Pittsfield in 1892, Dr. Jenkins remained as 
minister of the State Street Church in Portland for nearly ten 
years. He then resigned active pastoral work. The home 
of his old age was in or near Boston, whence he came not infre- 
quently to Pittsfield, and gratified by so doing a wide circle of 
devoted friends. While making one of these visits, he fell ill; 
and he died in Pittsfield, August fifteenth, 1913, in the eighty- 
second year of his age. 

The observance of the 125th anniversary of the First Church 
occurred during the ministry of Dr. Jenkins. The commemo- 
rative exercises were held on February seventh, 1889. The 
pastor delivered an impressive anniversary address, which the 
committee's report of the proceedings rightfully characterizes 
as the "work of a man who dearly loved his theme and spared no 
pains to do it justice". Members of church and parish read 
papers of historical interest, and reminiscent and congratulatory 
remarks were made by invited guests. In the chapel was ex- 
hibited a large collection of portraits of men and women who 



150 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

had been members of the church in the past, or who had worship- 
ed with it in its various meeting-houses. The purpose of the 
celebration was declared by its organizers to be threefold — to do 
honor to the memory of the fathers, to bring into closer relation- 
ship those who had succeeded or were descended from them, and 
to obtain and preserve memorials of the church's history, whether 
of record or derived from tradition. So far as the object last 
named is concerned, this purpose was visibly fulfilled, for the 
little volume published by the anniversary committee must al- 
ways be invaluable to the local antiquarian. 

The resignation of Dr. Jenkins, which was accepted by the 
church, but not at once by the parish, was finally approved by an 
ecclesiastical council held on July twenty-fifth, 1892, pursuant 
to letters missive sent out by the First Church. The pastorate 
was then vacant for more than a year. On September fourth, 
1893, the joint committee of church and parish received the ac- 
ceptance to a call sent to Rev. William Vail Wilson Davis. His 
period of service in Pittsfield continued for seventeen years. 

Dr. Davis was a native of the town of Wilson, New York, 
where he was born February seventeenth, 1851. He was in 1873 
graduated from Amherst College, and in 1877 from the Andover 
Theological Seminary. Before coming to Pittsfield, he had 
been installed pastor over Congregational churches in Manches- 
ter, New Hampshire, in Cleveland, Ohio, and in Worcester, 
Massachusetts. Lacking that sort of personal magnetism which 
is quickly and generally operative, he nevertheless possessed the 
power of attracting and leading young people; and an early effect 
of his work in Pittsfield was the invigoration of the church by 
the youthful enthusiasm of new members. Intellectually, he 
had not many peers among the clergymen of the Commonwealth. 
*'Many of his sermons", said a speaker at the commemoration of 
the 150th anniversary of the church in 1914, "were built about a 
skeleton of philosophy, and full of philosophic phrases and ideas 
difficult for a lay mind to grasp, but no sermon ever here fell 
from his lips, which, understood, failed to uplift, encourage, lead 
on to God, and the coming of His kingdom here on earth". 
His fellow workers in Berkshire, and especially the poorly paid 
ministers of lonely country villages, found that his charity was 
not merely the impractical help of a man of books. 



CHURCHES— I 151 

He soon conceived a strong and beneficent affection for 
Pittsfield. Few men ever delighted so zestfully in the charm of 
Berkshire's hills and valleys. His end was tragic. In the 
beautiful gorge of Bash-Bish, near Great Barrington, he fell on 
the rocky slope, and was instantly killed. The date of his death 
was August twenty-fifth, 1910. 

Rev. Dwight F. Mowrey was ordained assistant pastor in 
the following November; Dr. Davis's place, however, remained 
formally unfilled until June twenty-seventh, 1912, when Rev. 
James E. Gregg, the present pastor, was installed. Mr. Gregg 
had come to Pittsfield in 1903, to preside over the Pilgrim Me- 
morial Church on Wahconah Street. 

The appearance of the interior of the edifice of the First 
Congregational Church was radically altered in 1882, when the 
walls were covered with a metallic leaf, much of the woodwork 
darkened, and a large memorial window, designed by Louis C. 
Tiffany and given in memory of Jonathan Allen and Eunice 
Williams, his wife, was set over the south gallery. In 1912 
interior changes were again made, which involved the substitu- 
tion of a new organ for the old, and the provision of a memorial 
pulpit in remembrance of John Todd. The lecture room to the 
north of the church, having been substantially enlarged so as to 
satisfy the requirements of a modern parish house, was rededi- 
cated in 1894. The authorities of the parish, in 1911, parted 
with their real estate holdings on South Street, including the 
historic parsonage made famous as the residence of Dr. Todd. 

The church in 1914 fittingly celebrated its 150th anniversary. 
The occasion, like the anniversary in 1889, was preservative of 
past tradition, but was in character no less a stimulus to future 
growth of usefulness. It is to be noted of the church that, while 
clinging faithfully to many ancient customs, it has been so pro- 
gressive, for example, as to be one of the earliest Protestant 
churches in New England to support, on its own individual ac- 
count, a home missionary in a western state. This was under- 
taken in 1907. A foreign missionary in Japan had for several 
years been sustained by the church. The Free Will Society of 
women, formed for the purpose of aiding home missionaries, has 
been in continuous and active service among the members of the 



152 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

First Church since 1820; the unique custom of inviting the peo- 
ple of Pittsfield to unite in holding a sunrise prayer meeting on 
New Year's day has been regularly observed by the church 
since 1816. 

The dawn of the year 1876 witnessed the beginning of the 
seventh pastorate at the South Congregational Church. This 
was the ministry there of Rev. William Carruthers. It closed 
in 1877; and until 1885 the church had no settled pastor. The 
period for the church was one shadowed by adversity, testing the 
loyalty and courage of its leading members, but at the same time 
instilling that co-operative energy which later achieved gratify- 
ing results. The period was brightened, too, by the spirit of 
each of the two ministers who, although not formally installed 
pastors of the church, supplied its pulpit. 

From November, 1877, to April, 1879, this duty was per- 
formed by Rev. Charles B. Boynton. He had been, twenty 
years previously, the second pastor of the church. His return, 
although only for a few months, was particularly welcome and 
fortunate. Associated with the youthful days of the church, he 
was peculiarly fitted to revive its strength. Dr. Boynton suc- 
cessfully endeavored to remove indebtedness which had been in- 
curred in 1873, when extensive alterations were made in the 
audience room. This he accomplished in 1878, albeit in the 
stress of hard times; and the accomplishment under these cir- 
cumstances re-established the confidence of his people. Rev. 
C. H. Hamlin, a clergyman of marked power and attraction, 
supplied the pulpit from 1879 to 1885. The period is remember- 
ed as one wherein the churches of Pittsfield possessed preachers 
of exceptionally fine quality. Among them Mr. Hamlin was 
conspicuous. The South Church was now turning the corner 
from its shadowy lane of discouragement, and was ready for the 
inspiration of a settled leadership. 

In January, 1885, Rev. I. Chipman Smart was installed 
eighth pastor of the church. He was by no means a stranger to 
Pittsfield, having served, before studying for the ministry, as 
editor of the Evening Journal. His memorable pastorate, which 
covered a score of years, is the longest recorded in the history of 
the church. The renewal of vigor and activity was maintained 



CHURCHES— I 153 

with constancy under his forward-looking and zealous direction, 
and the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the church, in 
1900, found it progressing happily in strength and influence. 
Mr, Smart's rare talent for the incisive, racy expression of his 
thoughts, whether by tongue or pen, often affected the intellec- 
tual life of the community, like a tonic. He withdrew from the 
South Congregational Church in 1905, and was followed in its 
pulpit by Rev. C. Austin Wagner, who resigned it in 1908, to be 
succeeded in 1909 by Rev. Payson E. Pierce, the present pastor. 

The tall white steeple of the South Church used to be the 
most conspicuous landmark in the central village. On January 
twenty-sixth, 1882, it was blown down by a westerly gale, as its 
predecessor had been in 1859. The steeple was not again re- 
stored, but the present belfry replaced it. In 1884 improve- 
ments were made in the lecture room, and a parsonage was pur- 
chased. The audience room was completely remodeled and re- 
decorated in 1892; the alterations involved the removal of the 
quaint pew doors, and the disappearance of the last of such doors 
in Pittsfield. 

Over the Second Congregational Church, Rev. Samuel Har- 
rison presided faithfully from the time of his return to Pittsfield 
in 1872, until the date of his death, August eleventh, 1900. He 
was born of slave parentage in 1818, and was in 1850 ordained 
minister of the Second Congregational Church. His first pas- 
torate there was one of twelve years. During the Civil War, he 
served as a chaplain in the Fifty -fourth Massachusetts regiment, 
led by the heroic Col. Robert B. Shaw. Mr. Harrison, a simple. 
God-fearing man, so bore himself as to command the hearty re- 
spect of the town; he was "gifted in prayer," and his sonorous 
voice was well-known at public and religious meetings. Like 
his long life, his pastoral labor in Pittsfield was a patient, humble 
struggle against adversity, but his character won for him helpful 
friends. A memorial tablet in his honor was presented by some 
of them to the Second Congregational Church after his death. 
His successor and the present minister, Dr. T. Nelson Baker, 
preached his first Pittsfield sermon in August, 1901. The 
sixtieth anniversary of the organization of the church was suit- 
ably observed in 1906. 



154 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

An informal outgrowth of the First Church was the Peck and 
Russell Sunday School, opened in 1863 in a schoolhouse on Peck's 
Road. Its superintendents, between 1863 and 1895, were Jabez 
L. Peck, Zeno Russell and I. F. Chesley; it was maintained with 
enthusiasm; and from it came a movement toward the establish- 
ment of a Congregational church in the northwestern section of 
the city. A preliminary meeting having been held on March 
eighth, 1897, in the Sunday School rooms, the declaration of faith 
of the new Pilgrim Memorial Church received seventy-nine sig- 
natures on the fourteenth of the same month, and Rev. Raymond 
Calkins was called to the pastorate. 

The founding of the church was with spirited generosity as- 
sisted, both financially and by personal counsel, by the manu- 
facturers whose mills were in the neighborhood; nor did the 
First Church fail in practical support of the undertaking. The 
new Congregational parish had, as its original trustees, Solomon 
N. Russell, Thomas D. Peck, and L. G. Goodrich, and the parish 
was characterized by a certain close community feeling, which 
was a legacy, perhaps, from the days when Pittsfield's factory 
villages were less accessible and more sharply separated. On 
July thirty-first, 1897, the corner stone was laid of the graceful 
gray stone edifice on the west side of Wahconah Street. The 
architect was H. Neill Wilson of Pittsfield. The building was 
dedicated on January fourteenth, 1898, and on the same day 
the Pilgrim Memorial Church was received into the conference 
of Berkshire Congregational churches. Rev. James E. Gregg, 
following Mr, Calkins, was installed pastor in 1903; and Mr. 
Gregg was succeeded in 1909 by the minister who now serves the 
church. Rev. Warren S. Archibald. 

It will have been remembered that the construction of St. 
Joseph's Roman Catholic Church was commenced in 1864. 
The stately ceremony of its consecration, celebrated in 1889, 
marked the culminating point of a quarter-century of devoted 
endeavor on the part of priest and parish; and with truth can it 
be said that the edifice of St, Joseph's is a monument to the life- 
work of one man. 

Rev. Edward H. Purcell was born in Donoughmore, Ireland, 
July fifteenth, 1827, and educated in his native land for the 



CHURCHES— I 155 

priesthood. Having been ordained in May, 1853, he took ship 
for Boston, where he arrived in July, 1853, and immediately 
came to Pittsfield. In the following year, 1854, he succeeded 
Father Cuddihy, whose assistant he had been theretofore, as 
pastor of St. Joseph's; and in that office he remained until his 
death in Pittsfield, November ninth, 1891. His pastorate at St. 
Joseph's covered a period of thirty-seven years. Merely to re- 
cord its duration, however, is by no means to express adequately 
its value to Catholicism in Pittsfield or in Berkshire County. 
While Father Purcell was not, in a strict sense, one of the pioneers 
of his faith in Western Massachusetts, he was familiar, personally 
and at first-hand, with all of its loyal and arduous early efforts 
to plant permanent establishments for the service of its people 
in this part of the state. He inherited from those times that 
simple courage and that infinite patience which finally overcome 
great obstacles, and to his parishioners he imparted the same 
plain virtues. An example of this was the manner in which the 
members of the parish, under his guidance, freed their church 
edifice from its heavy construction debt. They were not wealthy. 
Often the task seemed hopeless. For twenty-five years they 
applied themselves to it. At length the duty was accomplished, 
St. Joseph's received its consecration, and, as if thereby his 
earthly mission was concluded, their beloved priest two years 
later passed to his reward. 

Father Purcell, as the general community knew him, was a 
neighborly, humorsome, easy-tempered and easy-going man, 
suggesting the lovable "P.P." of Irish story. He was so long 
and so beneficently concerned in Pittsfield life that frequent and 
unmistakable evidence was given of the high esteem in which he 
was held by the whole town. By his own people he was tenderly 
revered, for he had journeyed with them from youth to maturity; 
he had shared, for nearly forty years, their joys, their aspirations, 
and their sorrows; he had seen their number and their influence 
grow steadily, and their place of worship change from a rural 
chapel to a noble city church; and he had always upheld before 
them a pattern of kindly, guilelesss manhood. 

An enumeration shall not here be attempted of the many 
valuable assistants who have served under the parish priests at 



156 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

St. Joseph's. One of them, however, compels notice. Rev. 
R. S. J. Burke was born at Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1855, 
and died at West Springfield, in 1904. Although he was curate 
under Father Purcell for only a few years, he left a memorable 
imprint upon the church and upon the town. Father Burke, 
whether in the pulpit or on the platform, was an orator of im- 
passioned eloquence, and often returned to Pittsfield, after he 
ceased to be a resident in 1882, to teach vigorous lessons in re- 
ligion and in patriotism. 

The successor of Father Purcell was the Rev. Terence M. 
Smith, who was born in Ireland in 1849, was ordained to the 
priesthood at Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1875, and served 
pastorates at Palmer, North Adams, Greenfield, and Lee, before 
coming to St. Joseph's. He died at Pittsfield on March tenth, 
1900. The period spanned by his pastorate was notable for a 
striking expansion of the parochial interests under his charge. 
Father Purcell had purchased land immediately south of the 
church, and in 1896 Father Smith began the erection thereon of 
an academy and a convent home for the Sisters of St. Joseph. 
The building was first occupied by the Sisters in 1897. At that 
time it was the only Catholic academy in the diocese where in- 
struction was given in the more advanced branches of learning. 
After two years, the purpose of the seminary was altered, and 
the curriculum was changed to that of a parochial high school. 
In 1897, Father Smith acquired land on First Street in the rear of 
the convent, built there a school building, and opened, in 1899, 
St. Joseph's parochial school. The anxious and thoughtful 
labor involved in supervising the establishment of these institu- 
tions was not the only unusual burden shouldered by Father 
Smith. In 1893, it had become evident to the diocesan authori- 
ties that the number of worshipers at St. Joseph's had far out- 
grown the capacity of a single church, and that the parish must 
be divided. The result of this decision was St. Charles Church, 
of which mention is later to be made; but here it is to be observed 
that the division of a parish, especially of one so endeared to its 
older members as was St. Joseph's, is a process of peculiar trial 
for pastor and for people, and that Father Smith sustained his 
share of it with sympathetic discretion. 



CHURCHES— I 157 

Rev. James Boyle followed him in the pastorate of St. 
Joseph's in 1900. Impressive as had been the advance of Catho- 
licism in Pittsfield during the pastorate of Father Smith, its 
forwardness was no less marked under the ministration of his 
successor. In 1913, St. Joseph's parish again was necessarily 
divided, and the parish of St. Mark's was established in the 
western part of the city, with a chapel on Onota Street which was 
opened in May of that year. In the preceding March, announce- 
ment had been made of the purchase of land at the corner of 
Tyler and Plunkett Streets for the use of a future Catholic 
parish in the northeast section. Meanwhile, the congregations 
at St, Joseph's taxed and overtaxed the capacity of the church. 

Father Boyle was a native of Birkenhead, England, where 
he was born August fifteenth, 1845. When he was a child, his 
parents came to the United States. His early youth was one of 
spirited adventure. At the age of sixteen he enlisted for the 
Civil War in the Thirty-seventh regiment of New York volun- 
teers, presenting himself to the officers in the disguise of a drum- 
mer boy. He forthwith carried a rifle, however, instead of a 
drum, and on the field of Fredericksburg he was promoted to 
the rank of sergeant. This was when he was seventeen; a year 
later he was a lieutenant. After the war, he obtained work in 
the treasury and post-office departments, and at the cost of much 
self-sacrifice educated himself for the priesthood. He was 
graduated from the Catholic seminary at Montreal, and in 1875 
at Springfield was ordained. In 1900 he came to Pittsfield from 
Ware, Massachusetts, and in Pittsfield he died, June eleventh, 1913. 

Strength of spirit and strength of intellect were his in no ordi- 
nary combination, for they were welded by the sympathy of a 
man who knew mankind and to whom mankind was readily 
drawn. The furnace of war and privation had sternly forged 
his character; a gentle humanity inspired it. He was handsome 
and distinguished in face and figure, and in manner courteous and 
approachable. An omniverous reader of good books, he was 
the cause of the reading of them by others, and a watchful sup- 
porter of public education. The broad duties of patriotism had 
a no more zealous advocate than he in Pittsfield, nor one more 
zealous to practice what in speech he upheld. 



158 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

The present pastor of St. Joseph's, Rev. Bernard S. Conaty, 
became Father Boyle's successor in 1913. 

The interior of the edifice was renovated and greatly beauti- 
fied immediately prior to the consecration during the pastorate 
of Father Purcell, and again in 1901, when some added conven- 
ience in the seating facilities was gained by rearrangement. 
Long before the latter year, however, the number of parishioners 
of St. Joseph's was obviously too large for the size of the church, 
and a division of the parish was deemed necessary by the Rt. 
Rev. Thomas D. Beaven, the bishop of the diocese. 

This was effected in 1893, and on the evening of November 
fifth of that year the members of the new parish were assembled 
at the Coliseum on North Street. Their pastor. Rev. Charles J. 
Boylan, was presented to them by Rev. Terence M. Smith, the 
pastor of St. Joseph's. Father Boylan at this meeting headed 
the subscription for the building of a new church by a personal 
contribution of $500, and he announced that he would name the 
church St. Charles Borromeo, because it was on that saint's day, 
November fourth, that he had arrived in Pittsfield. He cele- 
brated the first mass of the new parish in the Coliseum, on No- 
vember twelfth, 1893, and services were regularly held there for 
more than a year. 

Ground was broken for the edifice of St. Charles in May, 
1894. The site selected, on Briggs Avenue, was on a command- 
ing rise of ground in the northwestern part of the city. The 
architect was John W. Donahue of Springfield, whose design was 
a free adaptation of the early English Gothic, executed in brick 
with marble facings. The corner stone was laid by Bishop 
Beaven on October seventh, 1894; on the following December 
ninth mass was first celebrated in the basement of the new 
building, and there services were conducted, pending the com- 
pletion of the edifice. 

The pastorate of Rev. Charles J. Boylan continued until 
December, 1897. He was a clergyman well-adapted for the 
task of establishing a new church, for he possessed tact, mag- 
netism, and an unfailing sense of duty to his sacred charge. 
Father Boylan was born in County Cavan, Ireland, in May, 
1854, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1878, at Montreal. 



CHURCHES— I 159 

On July twenty-sixth, 1913, he died at Springfield, being then 
pastor of All Souls Church in that city. Although he labored in 
Pittsfield for only four years, he impressed his character strongly 
upon the parish of which the beginnings were confided to his 
care. Rev. William H. Goggin was Father Boylan's successor 
at St. Charles, serving from January, 1898, until April, 1902. 
His pastorate witnessed in March, 1899, the impressive blessing 
of the bell, a gift from two parishioners; and also the dedication 
of the church by Bishop Beaven in June, 1901. The next pastor 
was Rev. C. H. Dolan, who was succeeded in December, 1903, 
by Rev. William J. Dower; and Father Dower continues to 
serve the church. The same spirit of earnest effort and self- 
denial, which characterized the successful endeavors of the 
parishioners of St. Joseph's to free their church from debt, had 
a parallel result in the parish of St. Charles; and the newer 
church, like the older, moved steadily forward in prosperity. 

The second division of St. Joseph's parish was accomplished 
in 1913, when St. Mark's chapel, designed as a temporary ac- 
commodation until a church should be built on the corner of 
West and Onota Streets, was opened on May fourth of that year 
on Onota Street. The priest first appointed to St. Mark's was 
Rev. Michael J. Leonard, who still serves there, his parishioners 
being the Roman Catholics resident in the western part of the 
city. 

Finally, in 1915, the parish of St. Joseph's was necessarily 
divided for the third time. With the purpose of relieving the 
strain on the capacity of the veteran church, Sunday services 
were instituted in a moving picture theater on Tyler Street in 
January, 1915; and two months later the new parish of St. 
Mary of the Morning Star was set off in the Morningside dis- 
trict. The first pastor. Rev. Jeremiah A. Riordan, came to St. 
Mary's on April first, 1915. Land for a site having been bought 
on the corner of Tyler and Plunkett Streets, the result of the 
spirited endeavors of Father Riordan justified the announce- 
ment, early in 1916, that a new church would be erected during 
the year. Sunday services continued to be held in the theater, 
while daily mass was celebrated in a small chapel in St. Mary's 
rectory on Tyler Street. 



160 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

In 1876, the French Roman Catholics of Pittsfield worshiped 
in the humble wooden church which had been built in 1844 by 
Father Brady of St. Joseph's, on Melville Street. Their devoted 
priest was Rev. Joseph Quevillon, a man of rare saintliness. 
He had come to Pittsfield in 1870, at the age of sixty-five, and 
four years later he had completely and hopelessly impoverished 
himself by purchasing, at the expenditure of all his slender sav- 
ings, the Melville Street church, and by contracting a heavy 
personal debt for improving its interior. Father Quevillon re- 
signed his pastorate in 1882, and on August sixth, 1891, he died 
at Pittsfield. He was born at St. Vincent de Paul, Canada, in 
1805. The name of his birthplace was curiously indicative of 
his life of piety and singleness of purpose. In his gentle soul 
was the heroic quality which prohibits thought of self. Even 
in his old age he knew not ease, and hardly knew comfort, save 
at the insistence of his loving parishioners. 

Father Quevillon's successor was Rev. Alexander L, Desaul- 
niers, who was followed in 1890 by Rev. L. O. Triganne. The 
pastorate of the latter was distinguished by a marked growth and 
energizing of the parish activities, and by the definite formulation 
of plans for a new edifice, in pursuance of which the labors of 
Father Triganne and of his people were indomitable. Rev. 
Amable I'Heureux, assuming the pastorate in 1893, carried these 
labors to a successful conclusion; and the corner stone of Notre 
Dame de Bon Conseil was laid on September fifteenth, 1895, on 
the site on Melville Street, of historic interest to all the Roman 
Catholics of the county. The spacious brick church, in the 
Romanesque style of architecture, and of satisfying beauty 
within as well as without, was dedicated by Bishop Beaven on 
May second, 1897; and, like several other church edifices in 
Pittsfield, it is impressive evidence of what may be accomplished 
by the patient and well-directed zeal of people rich only in de- 
termination. Their spirit was thoroughly exemplified by 
Father I'Heureux, who, struggling constantly against the ob- 
stacle of enfeebled health, remained with the church of Notre 
Dame until 1901. He was then succeeded by Rev. Clovis 
Baudoin. Rev. Levi J. Achim, the present pastor, assumed his 
duties in Pittsfield in 1910. 



CHURCHES— I 161 

The rapidly increasing number of residents of foreign descent, 
shortly after 1905, led to the establishment of flourishing Roman 
Catholic mission sdevoted to worshipers of Italian and of 
Polish birth, and under the charge of priests assigned by the 
head of the diocese. In 1915, services for the Italian Catholics 
were held regularly in the Sunday school rooms at St. Joseph's; 
and the announcement was made that land on Fenn Street had 
been obtained for the site of a Catholic church for the Italian 
people. 



CHAPTER XI 
CHURCHES— II 

THE First Baptist Church had in 1876 the incitement of a 
recent stimulation produced by the complete remodeling 
of its edifice on North Street and by the addition of a 
chapel in the rear. The rededication of what was in effect a new 
building had been celebrated in 1873, during the pastorate of 
Rev. C. H. Spalding. In 1875 Mr. Spalding resigned. The 
pulpit was then supplied for two years by Rev. W. W. Hammond; 
and in June, 1877, Rev. O. P. Gifford was ordained minister of 
the church. His successor was Rev. George W. Gile, who came 
to the church in July, 1879. 

The entire cost of the improvement and enlarging of the 
house of worship had been in the neighborhood of $40,000; 
but it does not appear that the incurrence of a burden of this 
sort was so troublesome to the Baptists as was the expense of re- 
building their edifices to the members of other Pittsfield churches 
in the same decade, who, with somewhat curious misfortune, 
chose to assume the task of raising money for substantial struc- 
tural improvements during a period of distressfully hard times. 
Mr. Gile, a vigorous, practical leader, left a strong impression 
upon the First Baptist Church, as well as upon the town. His 
co-operation with other clergymen in sustaining such charitable 
enterprises as the Union for Home Work and in shaping the 
organization of the national Congress of Churches, which origi- 
nated in Pittsfield in 1883, was of pronounced value, while the 
affairs of the church over which he immediately presided were 
conducted by him with intelligent and inspiring fidelity. In 
February, 1884, Mr. Gile withdrew, and Rev. Edward O. Hol- 
yoke was ordained minister in the following September. The 
winter of 1884-1885 was marked by a series of gratifying revival 
services at the church, and during the brief pastorate of Mr. 



CHURCHES— II 163 

Holyoke, who resigned in 1887, there was a gain of 250 mem- 
bers. 

In 1887, Rev. Orville Coates became pastor and remained 
until 1893. An attractive preacher, he helped to extend the 
field covered by the church's activities conspicuously through 
the Baptist mission and Sunday school established at Morning- 
side. The energetic pastorate at the First Baptist Church of 
Rev, Herbert S. Johnson began in May, 1893, and continued 
until his resignation in 1899; Rev. Gove G. Johnson was in- 
stalled there in January, 1900; Rev. F. W. Lockwood followed 
in November, 1902; and in 1909 Rev. Charles P. MacGregor 
accepted the pastorate, in which he now serves. 

An harmonious devotion to mutual endeavor appears to have 
distinguished the membership of the First Baptist Church in 
Pittsfield since its pioneer days; and its later ministers, like its 
earlier pastors, were men equipped to direct and foster this 
characteristic of the society, of which the recent career, while 
one of sound growth and of consistent value to the higher life 
of town and city, presents few features deserving historical re- 
mark. At the observance of the church's centennial anniver- 
sary, celebrated in March, 1901, its spirit was abundantly ex- 
emplified, and the story of the many faithful men and women, 
to whom it owed its honorable position, was vividly recalled. 

The Baptist Sunday school mission at Morningside, already 
mentioned in connection with the pastorate of Rev. Orville 
Coates, found so broad an opportunity for usefulness that a 
wooden chapel on Spring Street was dedicated for its occupancy 
in March, 1895. In May of the same year, Rev. James Grant 
became assistant pastor of the First Baptist Church, under Rev. 
Herbert S. Johnson; and the project soon took definite shape of 
establishing a new Baptist society in the Morningside section, 
where the population was then rapidly increasing. With the 
approval and hearty assistance of the mother society, this was 
effected in 1896, when, on April twenty-ninth, the Morningside 
Baptist Church was organized, with 118 charter members. Mr. 
Grant, a man of attractive enthusiasm and of graceful, pregnant 
speech, was the first pastor. The new church flourished, holding 
its services in the Spring Street chapel. Rev. L. A. Palmer fol- 



164 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

lowed Mr. Grant in December, 1900; Rev. J. Bruce Gilman 
succeeded him in 1903; and in 1909 Rev. H. C. Leach, the present 
pastor, was installed. 

The congregation speedily outgrew the accommodations af- 
forded by the church's original home; and at length the resolute 
and laborious efforts to provide means for the erection of a suit- 
able edifice were successful. A site was obtained at the inter- 
section of Grove and Tyler Streets. There the corner stone was 
laid, July second, 1911. The attendant exercises formed a sig- 
nificant part of the celebration in honor of the 150th anniversary 
of the founding of the town. The handsome and spacious edifice 
of brick was dedicated on March second, 1913, and, lying in a 
populous and busy district, it has been the center of much 
evangelical diligence. 

Under the auspices also of the First Baptist Church, a mis- 
sion chapel was built on Elm Street, at the corner of Northum- 
berland Road, which was dedicated on October fifth, 1913. 

A series of religious meetings, held during the winter of 1886- 
87 in a hall in Central Block on North Street by adherents to 
the Unitarian system of belief, resulted in the organization of 
Unity Church and ultimately in the erection of the first Uni- 
tarian house of worship in Berkshire County. The original 
president of the society, which was formed in April, 1887, was 
Edward T. Fisher, the proprietor of schools for boys both in 
Lanesborough and Pittsfield. Rev. J. F. Moore of Greenfield 
conducted services in a hall on North Street; and in Novem- 
ber, 1887, Rev. W. W. Fenn was installed as the church's first 
pastor. Mr. Fenn, whose ability led him later to the posi- 
tion of dean of the Harvard Divinity School, soon brought the 
young society to a stage where a church building seemed 
necessary. In March, 1889, land was purchased on the west side 
of North Street, between Bradford and Linden Streets; and there 
a wooden edifice was erected, which was dedicated January 
seventh, 1890. The cost of land and building was about $15,000. 
This transaction the members of the society financed not without 
diflBculty; but the selection of the site and the time of its pur- 
chase were alike fortunate, for the value of real estate on upper 
North Street was then on the point of beginning to increase rapidly . 



CHURCHES— II 165 

In 1891 Rev. Carl G. Horst succeeded Mr. Fenn, and in 
1895 Rev. C. W. Park wasi nstalled in a brief pastorate which 
was terminated within a few months by his death. Rev. G. S. 
Anderson then filled the pulpit for a little over two years. He 
was followed, from December, 1898, to April, 1899, by Rev. 
John A. Bevington. Assuming charge on the first Sunday in 
March, 1900, Rev. Nathaniel Seaver, Jr., served the church until 
he was succeeded by the present pastor, Rev. Earl C. Davis, in 
April, 1905. 

In the summer of 1912 the society accepted an opportunity 
to sell with advantage its North Street property, which had 
nearly quadrupled in value in twenty years, and to acquire the 
former residence, on Linden Street, of Marshall Wilcox. Thence 
removal was accordingly made, and the building on North Street 
was leased by its new owner for a moving picture theater. 
Comfortably established on Linden Street, the church found it- 
self in possession of a home well-adapted to its needs. Remodel- 
ing and enlargement made it possible to combine under one roof 
the functions of a church building, a parish house, and a parson- 
age. 

A troublesome condition of discord, the misfortune of St. 
Stephen's Episcopal Church for many years, had been apparently 
alleviated during the rectorship of Rev. Leonard K. Storrs, who 
resigned in April, 1875, and was then succeeded by Rev. William 
McGlathery. Mr. Storrs was a man of conciliatory tempera- 
ment, and under his placid administration the vexatious elements 
of internal strife, which had long disturbed St. Stephen's Church 
and parish, slumbered restfully. Mr. McGlathery, however, 
seemed to be unable to prevent their awakening, and he with- 
drew from the local ministry in February, 1881. For nearly a 
year St. Stephen's was without a rector. In January of the fol- 
lowing year it made its election of Rev. W. W. Newton, and be- 
came the possessor of a leader of an extraordinary and vital 
personality. 

William Wilberforce Newton was born in Philadelphia, No- 
vember fourth, 1843, was graduated from the University of 
Pennsylvania in 1865, and in 1869 was ordained in the Episco- 
palian ministry, a vocation to which, indeed, he had been with 



166 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

less formality already summoned by virtue of a distinguished 
clerical lineage. In 1877, he was chosen rector of St. Paul's in 
Boston, and he came from St. Paul's to Pittsfield. There he 
preached for the last time in July, 1899. His health, then 
gravely impaired, thereafter enforced residence for some years 
in France. On June twenty-fifth, 1914, he died at Brookline, 
Massachusetts. The most obvious characteristic of his mind was its 
fecundity. In a day he could conceive and vizualize — nay, 
could even actually initiate — more worthy enterprises, parochial 
and charitable, than the devoted energies of men and women 
could fully execute in a year. Publishers printed busily his 
poems, novels, children's stories and plays, his books of travel, 
criticism, sermons, and biography. With few of the contem- 
porary movements in religion, sociology, and literature, either 
in this country or abroad, was he unacquainted. He addressed 
with effect gatherings of all sorts, ranging from soldiers' re- 
unions and political meetings to Browning societies and church 
congresses. His physical, as well as intellectual, make-up 
equipped him in his prime for the performance of much labor, 
for he was tall, powerfully built, and given to outdoor exercise. 
His face was ruddy and habitually betokened his sociable spirit 
of kindly humor. 

Under his restless stimulation, the affairs of St. Stephen's be- 
gan to assume an activity to which they had not quite been ac- 
customed. From the pulpit Dr. Newton often spoke with a 
poetical mysticism confusing to the majority; but his broad 
sympathy, his tolerance, and his Christian manliness were un- 
obscured, and the strength of them attracted increased congrega- 
tions. In 1887 he launched the project of erecting a new church 
edifice, to replace the structure built by St. Stephen's in 1832. 
The question of a site was important. The land which the 
parish held under a grant from the town, complicated by an odd 
tangle of legal agreements with the estate of Edward A. Newton, 
was bounded on the west by a line running fourteen feet from 
the town hall and on the east was thirty-four feet from the Allen 
property. A special town meeting, held in January, 1888, voted 
to accede to a proposition of exchange made by the parish, where- 
by the latter acquired a building lot adjoining the Allen land. 



CHURCHES— II 167 

leaving space between the church property and the town hall for 
a highway to Fenn Street from Park Square, which was much 
desired by the members of the Methodist Church. The select- 
men were appointed a committee to exchange deeds. 

In the meantime, however. Dr. Newton's parishioners be- 
came involved in a dissension which was slightly but unhappily 
reminiscent of some former days of St. Stephen's. It was point- 
ed out that sites other than that secured by the arrangement 
with the town might be more adequate. Many wished a church 
larger and more imposing than the edifice contemplated by their 
rector. Among the plots of land suggested for it were the present 
site of the Berkshire Home for Aged Women on South Street, the 
land at the north corner of South and Church Streets, and the 
Pomeroy "Homestead" lot on East Street, immediately west of 
Bartlett Avenue. At length, and having in view the site last 
named, the parish voted, in August, 1888, to offer a release to the 
town of the church property on Park Square for $20,500. This 
bargain was stormily declined by a somewhat acrid town meeting 
in the following September; and after a few adjustments of 
boundary lines, the corner stone of the new St. Stephen's was 
laid, July eleventh, 1889, on the Park Square lot. 

The architects were Messrs. Peabody and Stearns of Boston, 
and they selected Longmeadow sandstone for their material. 
The old building having been razed, services were held in a 
wooden parish house, which was put up on the rear of the lot in 
the summer of 1889. On May fourteenth, 1890, the present 
church building was dedicated. 

In its new home, the church continued steadily to gain in 
usefulness and solidarity under the enthusiastic direction of Dr. 
Newton. Early in 1900, a distressing affliction which prohibited 
the use of his voice compelled him to withdraw from ministerial 
work. He was succeeded at St. Stephen's by Rev. Thomas W. 
Nickerson. Mr. Nickerson, whose executive ability was un- 
common, in a few years placed the affairs of the parish upon a 
basis more secure than that which they had possessed under his 
predecessors. He resigned in 1914; and in 1915 he was followed 
by Rev. Stephen E. Keeler, Jr., the present rector. 

The will of Miss Elizabeth Stuart Newton, who died in 1891, 



168 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

made St. Stephen's parish the owner of the Edward A. Newton 
homestead at the corner of Wendell Avenue and East Street, up- 
on the condition that the property should always be utilized for 
parochial purposes, and accordingly the historic house, built 
during the Revolution by Col, James Easton, became the church 
rectory. By private benefaction, also, the interior of the church 
has been from time to time embellished, notable gifts from indi- 
viduals having been those of the altar, the pulpit, and the organ. 

An Episcopalian mission was initiated at Morningside in 
1908, which shortly afterward developed into St. Martin's 
Church. The church building on Woodlawn Avenue was given, 
as was the land, by friends of the new parish in Lenox and 
Pittsfield. Partly self-sustaining and partly supported by 
diocesan aid, St, Martin's has had as pastors in charge Rev. C. J. 
Sniff en, Rev. C. O. Arnold, Rev. C. P. Otis, and the present pas- 
tor. Rev. F. C, Wheelock. 

The members of the Protestant German Evangelical Parish, 
so incorporated in 1861, worshiped in 1876 in the wooden 
church which had been built on First Street in 1865. Their 
pastor, Rev. John D. Haeger, had served them since 1868. In 
February, 1888, he resigned, being then seventy-eight years of 
age. The parochial conditions were not auspicious. The mem- 
bership of the church was only fifty-five. Services were con- 
ducted exclusively in the German language; and a strong feeling 
prevailed, especially among the young people of the parish, that 
this restriction should be loosened, a step which Mr. Haeger, it 
appears, was disinclined from taking. Rev. John David Haeger 
died in Brooklyn, New York, on June twenty-fourth, 1900, in the 
ninety-first year of his age. His grave is in the Lutheran cem- 
etery at Middle Village, Long Island. Affectionately called 
"Father" Haeger by his Pittsfield flock, he was a fine type of the 
old-fashioned, simple-hearted, conscientious, village clergyman. 
His service in the town was marked by unusual self-denial, and 
of the small salary which could be allowed to him he was ac- 
customed to contribute a large portion to the treasury of the 
church. 

In April, 1888, Rev. William F. E. Hoppe, was chosen pastor, 
and in the same month he preached the first sermon in English 



CHURCHES— II 169 

ever delivered in the church by its minister. Under his efficient 
pastorate, both the church membership and the congregations 
were very considerably increased. A new edifice was soon proved 
to be a necessity, and a building committee applied itself to the 
task. In 1892 the corporate name was altered, by consent of the 
legislature, to Zion's Evangelical Lutheran Church. 

The corner stone of the new brick church, occupying the site 
of the original structure on First Street, was laid on July thir- 
teenth, 1892, with appropriate ceremonies, the building having 
then been so far advanced that the congregation was able to as- 
semble therein. Mr. Hoppe, to whose energy and breadth of 
view the people of the church were greatly indebted, resigned 
the pastorate in April, 1893, and in the following June he was 
followed by Rev. Werner L. Genzmer, the present pastor. The 
rejuvenation of the church, happily signalized by the erection of 
its new house of worship, was productive of a gain in usefulness 
which has been maintained with steadiness in more recent years. 

On May fifth, 1874, during the first pastorate in Pittsfield of 
Rev. John F. Clymer, the Methodist Episcopal society dedicated 
its present church on Fenn Street. The cost of the land and 
the building was in the neighborhood of $115,000. In the town 
of those days the undertaking was one of magnitude. The 
members of the Methodist Church were then, with only two or 
three exceptions, people of moderate means. However, they 
were stout-hearted and loyal; and at the time of the dedication 
of the edifice the numerous pledges made of the subscription of 
funds seemed to assure the financial future of the society. 
Dr. Clymer was followed as preacher in charge by Rev. 
David W. Gates, who served until 1878. Meanwhile, a mone- 
tary panic had inflicted itself upon the country. A great ma- 
jority of the subscription pledges, made in good faith by the 
enthusiastic Pittsfield Methodists in 1874, were now impossible 
of collection. Indebted in a sum of over $60,000, the society 
faced a situation hazardous to its very existence. When the 
question of assigning a preacher to Pittsfield was brought before 
the annual Troy Conference in 1878, it was plainly intimated 
there that the appointed clergyman would be called upon merely 
to preside over a collapse and to save what wreckage he could; 



170 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

in Pittsfield many citizens, and many of the Methodists them- 
selves, beheved that the society must inevitably lose the hand- 
some church edifice, which had been proudly welcomed by the 
town only four years previously. At this critical juncture, Rev. 
Frederick Widmer was assigned to the Pittsfield pastorate. 

The assertion is hardly too strong that through Mr. Widmer 
the Fenn Street church was saved to the society. A sympathetic 
and hopeful friend in adversity, he appears to have been none the 
less positive and determined. It is related of him that one Sun- 
day, having opened the services by observing that he would not 
continue to occupy the pulpit until certain minor payments had 
been made for the care of the building, he immediately picked up 
his hat and went home. The astonished congregation at once 
contributed enough money to pay the bills, and Mr. Widmer in 
a few minutes resumed the pulpit. 

In order to reduce, or even to carry, the construction debt, 
great personal sacrifices were needed, sacrifices declared by the 
older members of the society to be incomprehensible to a later 
generation. These self-denials Mr. Widmer was able to inspire. 
When he left Pittsfield, in 1880, the church had crossed the 
Slough of Despond in which, two years before, he had found it 
struggling. One-half of the debt had been wiped out, and the 
current expenses had been squarely met. More important, per- 
haps, was the development of a courageous spirit, an impressive 
possession of the society which was operative after the struggle 
itself had been won. The original mortgage, given in 1873, was 
paid in 1911, and was then publicly and joyfully burned. 

Succeeding Mr. Widmer were Rev. H. L. Grant in 1880, 
Rev. George Skene in 1882, Rev. C. D. Hills in 1885, Rev. J. E. C. 
Sawyer in 1888, Rev. John F. Clymer in 1892. Dr. Clymer had 
previously, from 1872 to 1875, been the preacher on the local 
circuit, when to his influence had been due much of the enthus- 
iasm resulting in the erection of the new church. He was a 
bold, energetic, plain speaking man, not afraid, at least in his 
younger days, to expose himself to the charge of sensationalism. 
In 1903 he died in Dansville, New York, having served for forty 
years in the ministry. At the Methodist Church in Pittsfield, he 
was followed in 1896 by Rev. John W. Thompson. Dr. Thomp- 



CHURCHES— II 171 

son, on the platform as well as in the pulpit, was a magnetic and 
eloquent orator, a popular favorite with all sorts of Pittsfield 
audiences. He was born at Jay, New York, in 1843, and died 
at Nassau, in the same state. May fourth, 1910. His patriotic 
addresses delivered during the excitement of the war with Spain 
are still held admiringly in local remembrance. In 1901 Rev. 
Charles L. Leonard succeeded Dr. Thompson in Pittsfield, and 
in 1909 Rev. J. A. Hamilton, now the presiding preacher, was 
assigned to the church. Under these leaders the development of 
of the society has been gratifying, and to it each of them has 
made his salutary contribution. 

An active and helpful offspring of the church has been its 
Epworth Mission, which, in 1892, obtained from the city consent 
to use an unoccupied schoolhouse on Francis Avenue. There 
mission work flourished on religious, social, and vocational lines, 
and in 1906 the mission remodeled and occupied its building on 
Linden Street. In 1895 the former parsonage on Pearl Street 
was sold, and a minister's home built on Bartlett Avenue. The 
edifice of the Methodist Church on Fenn Street continued to af- 
ford to the city, as to the town, the largest auditorium in Pitts- 
field, having been arranged to supply capacity for seating more 
than two thousand persons; and it was therefore the scene of 
important meetings and memorial exercises held during the 
period of which this volume treats. 

Significant of the strength of the veteran society was the es- 
tablishment of a Methodist mission at Morningside in 1900, for 
which a wooden chapel was in the same year built at the corner 
of Tyler and Plunkett Streets. There mission services were 
regularly held for a number of years. It was not long before a 
movement to form a new Methodist society in the northeastern 
part of the city was inaugurated. The project had the benefit 
of the earnest and stimulating direction of Rev. John A. Hamil- 
ton; and the result was the organization of Trinity Methodist 
Episcopal Church, effected in April, 1914. 

The mission chapel, having been enlarged and improved, was 
occupied by the members of the new church for their first services 
in May, 1914. The first pastor was Rev. Ralph G. Finley, who 
was succeeded in April, 1916, by Rev. Robert B. Leslie. Of 



172 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

particular advantage to the Trinity M. E. Church during this 
formative period was the strong support of two auxiliary associa- 
tions, the Trinity Women's Aid Society and the Men's Brother- 
hood; and the church, even in its infancy, was enabled to play a 
prominent part among the religious activities of the Morningside 
section. 

Rev. J. E. Cross, by faith a Second Adventist, began in 
1888 to hold religious meetings in a room in the Backus building 
on Park Square. There the Advent Christian Society appears 
to have been formed by him in 1888, although the Second Adven- 
tist Christian Church, with Mr. Cross as pastor, was not formally 
organized until 1890. Their present church edifice on Fenn 
Street was dedicated by the Second Adventists on January first, 
1891. The pastorate of Mr. Cross was followed by those of 
Rev. M. A. Potter and Rev. C. K. Sweet, and, in 1899, by that 
of Rev. Chauncey T. Pike. In 1905, Mr. Pike withdrew from 
the leadership of the Fenn Street church and assumed direction 
of the Church of God, having its home in a hall on North Street. 
Rev. George L. Young became pastor of the Second Adventist 
Christian Church in 1907; he was succeeded in 1909 by Rev. 
Harold E. Young; and the present pastor, Rev. Joseph Miett, 
began his duties there in 1911. 

In October, 1902, four residents of Pittsfield, who were mem- 
bers of First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, began to 
meet regularly to read from the works of the founder of that 
faith, Mary Baker Eddy. The attendance at the Pittsfield 
meetings so increased that in June, 1904, plans were discussed of 
forming a permanent organization. These were forwarded by 
two students of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, who, 
in the summer of 1904, accepted an invitation to come to Pitts- 
field and who conducted services and meetings at their home on 
Bartlett Avenue during the following autumn and winter. 

A hall was then rented in the Merrill building on North 
Street, and there the first public Christian Science services in 
Pittsfield were held on March fifth, 1905. On April fourth was 
incorporated First Church of Christ, Scientist, Pittsfield, Massa- 
chusetts, with an initial membership of twenty-two. The 
North Street hall continued to be used by the church for two 



CHURCHES— II 173 

years. In 1907 a residence at 131 South Street was bought by 
the church and completely remodeled for its purposes, so as to 
provide an auditorium and a reading room. Services were first 
held there on December eighth, 1907; and there the church has 
since remained. The First Readers since the formation of the 
church have been Archie E. Van Ostrand, Cornelius C. Cook, 
and Henry A. Germain. 

Among adherents to the Jewish faith who first made their 
homes in Pittsfield was Joseph R. Newman, who became a resi- 
dent of the village in 1857. In the same year came also two 
brothers, Moses and Louis England. The local Society Aneha 
Amonim ("Men of Religion") was formed in 1869 by twenty 
heads of Jewish families, mostly of German lineage. Its original 
place of worship was in the house of Charles Wolf on Jubilee 
Hill, near the present corner of Robbins and Columbus Avenues, 
and the first meeting of record was on November fourteenth, 
1869. The society was incorporated in the following year, and 
the congregation worshiped in the houses of its members 
until 1882, when a hall was occupied in the building at the north 
corner of Fenn and North Streets. In 1900 the society migrated 
to the home which it at present occupies in the Melville building 
on North Street. A Sunday school has been maintained since 
1885. 

The Society Ansha Amonim began as early as 1879 to discard 
by degrees some of the orthodox forms of worship which it had 
originally observed, for the records of that year prescribe that 
the services shall be according to "Minhag America"; and in 
1904 the congregation formally adopted the ritual of the Union 
Prayer Book. At the same time, however, the members of the 
society continued to aid, by support both moral and financial, 
their fellow religionists of recent emigration, who preferred to 
worship according to the orthodox form. The latter became in 
time able to establish societies of their own. The first of these 
was the orthodox congregation of Keneseth Isreal, incorporated 
in 1894. Its earlier meetings were held at 340 Robbins Avenue, 
and in 1906 it erected the present synagogue on the south side of 
Linden Street. Another orthodox Jewish society was entitled 
Ahavez Sholam, incorporated in 1911 and worshiping in 1915 in 



174 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

a synagogue on Dewey Avenue. Each of these congregations 
has purchased land for a communal cemetery, the latter in 1912, 
on Churchill Street, and the former in 1898, at the northeastern 
border of the property of the Pittsfield Cemetery Corporation. 
In 1871, a plot of land was purchased from that corporation by 
the Society Ansha Amonim for a Jewish burying ground. 

The beautiful grounds of the Pittsfield Cemetery Corporation 
were adorned in 1900 by the erection thereon of a mortuary 
chapel, presented by Mrs. Edwin Clapp in memory of her hus- 
band and dedicated on October seventeenth, 1900. A bequest 
to the corporation from Thomas Allen provided for a stone gate- 
way on Wahconah Street, which was built in 1884 and of which 
the cost, including that of the bronze gates given by Mrs. Allen, 
was $7,000. The Roman Catholic cemetery on Peck's Road has 
been graced by artistic improvement; and in 1903 it was broad- 
ened by the addition of a tract of land of seventy -five acres, ad- 
joining it on the northwest and purchased by Rev. James Boyle. 



CHAPTER XII 
THE BERKSHIRE ATHENAEUM AND MUSEUM 

AT the dedication of the edifice of the Berkshire Athenaeum, 
on September twenty-third, 1876, Thomas Allen, in the 
course of his address as donor of the building, spoke these 
words : 

"The good fortune of being born in Pittsfield and of being 
stimulated to exertion by early poverty gave me the opportunity 
of realizing two wishes. One was to possess and build upon the 
home here occupied by my father and grandfather since 1765, 
and the other was to aid in making memorable the town by doing 
something useful for it. I am not sure but that a cherished belief 
that this country is to be saved, if at all, by the cultivation of 
patriotism and the diffusion of intelligence entered into the mo- 
tive. At all events, I am thankful that I have been blessed with 
the means and opportunity of accomplishing the two wishes I 

have mentioned Having performed what I 

deemed my part, I shall rest in full faith that the town will per- 
form its part of the contract, that the institution will be liberally 
and perpetually sustained, and that its beneficial influence, 
commencing now, will be continued so long as the town stands". 

Pittsfield's part of the contract, to which Mr. Allen referred, 
was embodied in a vote passed by the town meeting, in 1874, 
whereby the town agreed to pay to the trustees of the Athe- 
naeum, upon the erection of the new building, the sum of two 
thousand dollars annually, "until such time as said trustees shall 
receive the bequest of the late Phineas Allen, Esq., or such por- 
tion thereof as shall enable them to realize from the increase 
thereof, the said sum of two thousand dollars yearly". That 
the town was disposed to regard this compact without narrowness 
was soon shown, for the town meeting of 1877 appropriated three, 
instead of two, thousand dollars for the maintenance of the li- 
brary and museum. 

The institution in its new home was opened for public use on 



176 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

October second, 1876. The librarian and curator was Edgar G. 
Hubbell. There were about 8,000 books in the library; the 
reading room was supplied with one daily newspaper, and ten 
weekly and six monthly periodicals. From 1873 to 1879 no 
purchase of new books was possible. The town meeting of 1879, 
however, voted an extra appropriation for the specific purpose 
of buying books, and beginning in 1877 a fund was annually 
raised by private subscription to procure newspapers and periodi- 
cals for the reading room. In June, 1879, the librarian reported 
that the number of volumes on the shelves was 9,248, that 3,211 
persons held cards entitling them to the use of the library, and 
that there had been 25,008 books lent during the preceding 
twelve months. 

In the meantime, the Athenaeum was beginning to serve the 
community in other directions. Conditions were made, in 1878, 
with the Berkshire Historical and Scientific Association, under 
which the association established its headquarters on the second 
floor of the Athenaeum building; and there, in the west room, a 
collection of objects of scientific and antiquarian interest soon 
grew to a considerable size. The east room on the same floor 
was equipped as a lecture hall and became the home of several 
literary societies, notably of the Wednesday Morning Club of 
women, formed in 1879. In the central room a gallery of art 
gradually manifested itself. This was stimulated during the 
summer of 1880 by the temporary establishment of a Loan Art 
Exhibition. The exhibition remained open several weeks; in 
the evenings it was occasionally enlivened by concerts of music; 
and it proved to be a potent attraction to many visitors. The 
variety and quality of the display, lent from Berkshire homes, 
were surprising. The paintings, for example, included a Rem- 
brandt, an Albert Durer, a Salvator Rosa, and a Murillo. The 
assembled collections, in particular, of laces and of Chinese 
jewelry were pronounced to be unique. The educational, as 
well as the esthetic, value of the exhibition was unusual; and 
it revealed to the community the possibilities of the Athenaeum 
as a focal point of the county's artistic and historical interests. 

Mr. Hubbell, the librarian, was an assiduous gatherer of local 
pamphlets and memorabilia, and this department of the library 



THE BERKSHIRE ATHENAEUM AND MUSEUM 177 

was well supplied, while the collection of governmental documents, 
diligently nurtured by Henry L. Dawes, was of exceptional 
completeness. But the number of books adapted to general cir- 
culation, especially among boys and girls, was not adequate to the 
growing use of the library by the public, and the system of cata- 
loguing demanded expensive revision. In 1883 the trustees re- 
solved to take bold action. They determined to make the Phin- 
eas Allen estate immediately available, to anticipate its future 
payment to the Athenaeum, and to borrow on that anticipation 
a sum sufficient to rearrange the library, to catalogue it suitably, 
and to buy new books. Moreover, they had in their hands a 
fund for the purchase of books, bequeathed by Mrs. Thaddeus 
Clapp, who, during her lifetime, had been a liberal giver to the 
institution. Nor should it be forgotten that the town was cus- 
tomarily ready to increase somewhat the regular annual appro- 
priation to which it deemed itself bound. 

In accordance with this decision of the trustees, the circulat- 
ing department of the library was, in 1883, practically renewed. 
4,249 volumes were added; the entire library was newly cata- 
logued and arranged. Having been closed for eleven weeks, the 
library was reopened December fifteenth, 1883. That the steps 
taken were of public benefit soon seemed to be evident, for in the 
following June a greatly increased circulation of books was re- 
ported. 

In November, 1888, Mr. Hubbell resigned the position of li- 
brarian and curator, and he was immediately followed by Harlan 
H. Ballard. The new librarian's first annual report, made in 
June, 1889, showed that there were in the library 15,890 books, 
of which 3,303 were volumes of public documents. For several 
succeeding years a gain was maintained in the total number of 
books, so that it reached 20,000 in 1893. At the same time, 
further numerical growth appeared to be impossible under the 
existing limitations of space in the Athenaeum building. The 
trustees of the institution, however, were convinced that the 
legitimate demand upon the library by the public, and especially 
by the children of the public schools, was rapidly increasing, 
and was likely to increase still more rapidly in the near future; 
and they conceived that the obligation of their trust compelled 



178 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

them to spare no effort to provide at once for the substantial en- 
largement of the building presented in 1876 by Thomas Allen. 

The Phineas Allen estate had become disencumbered of an- 
nuities, and had been paid to the Athenaeum in 1891. The 
property which thus passed into the possession of the institution 
was valued at about $70,000. To expend a considerable part of 
it for the purchase of land and for the erection of an addition to 
the building for library purposes was, of course, to deprive the 
Athenaeum of much income, and to make it almost completely 
dependent for maintenance and growth upon the annual grant 
from the city, and upon the beneficence of private donors. On 
the other hand, the trustees were apparently unable to believe 
that they could reasonably expect hearty municipal or private 
interest for an institution whose facilities were so cramped and 
inadequate for public needs that it could neither fully prove its 
present usefulness nor convincingly indicate what it might do in 
the future. More library space seemed to be absolutely essen- 
tial, and the need of it was accentuated, if possible, by a bequest 
of books by Miss Elizabeth Stuart Newton in 1892, and in 1895 
by the donation of 2,000 volumes from the library of Dr. Oliver 
Wendell Holmes, presented by his son, Mr. Justice Holmes, of the 
United States Supreme Court. The latter donation, indeed, 
could not even be unpacked and placed on the shelves. 

Attempts to purchase land in the rear of the building were 
initiated in 1893. These having decisively failed, in the opinion 
of the trustees, they petitioned the legislature for the right to take 
one-quarter of an acre of land upon the payment of an adjudi- 
cated price therefor, under the law of eminent domain. The 
course taken by the trustees did not escape vigorous and well- 
intentioned censure from many citizens, but nevertheless the 
petition was granted in 1895. 

Upon the land thus acquired, a large extension of the main 
building toward the south was erected and equipped at a cost of 
about $50,000, and was ready for occupancy in the spring of 1897. 
The general design of the addition was devised by the librarian, 
Mr. Ballard, and elaborated and made technically complete by 
the architects, Messrs. Hartwell, Richardson and Driver of 
Boston. The execution of these plans allowed to the circulating 



THE BERKSHIRE ATHENAEUM AND MUSEUM 179 

library a floor space of nearly 4,500 square feet whereon it was 
estimated that about 70,000 books could be conveniently arrang- 
ed. The addition placed the growth of the library beyond the 
possibility of merely physical restraint for many years. The 
community had at its service, and free of cost to itself, a library 
building ample for a long future period. But the financial en- 
dowment of the institution had been greatly reduced. A con- 
temporary report of the president of the corporation put the case 
in this way: "The Athenaeum has been fostered and made a 
most prominent and useful educational institution largely by 
private generosity, of the benefits of which the citizens of Pitts- 
field have the unstinted use, and now the city may wisely adopt 
and recognize it as part of its educational system and as a ward 
of the municipality, deserving its hearty and ungrudging support 
and care". 

The city was then without ofiBcial representation in the cor- 
porate management. In 1897, the trustees voluntarily altered 
the organization of their board and obtained from the legislature 
an amendment of their charter, by which the successive mayors, 
the chairmen of the school committees, and the city treasurers 
become trustees of the Athenaeum during the tenures of their 
municipal offices. It was believed that by virtue of this measure 
the city might require, through its treasurer, the rendering of 
whatever account it demanded of the funds it might appropriate 
for the support of the Athenaeum, that it might recommend, 
through the chairman of its school committee, the extent to 
which the institution should co-operate with the public schools, 
and finally that it would be safeguarded by the mayor's intimate 
knowledge, gained as a member of the board of trustees, of the 
use made of its appropriations. Under this closer relationship 
between the Athenaeum and the city government, the annual 
municipal appropriations increased. In 1898, the appropriation 
was $5,000; it was $10,000 in 1915. 

By the enlargement of the building, the efficiency of the li- 
brary was soundly stimulated. A new and elaborate catalogue, 
on the so-called card system, was begun at once and within a few 
years was carried to completion by the regular library staff. In 
1899 the number of volumes in all departments was 34,000, the 



180 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

circulation of books exceeded 80,000, and a librarians' training 
class was opened with six pupils, who in return for instruction 
gave the library their services for one year. A branch circulating 
library was established near the Russell factory village, and in 
1902 the total circulation first touched 100,000. In widening 
the public use of the library, and especially of the reference de- 
partment, much was accomplished by enlisting the co-operation 
of teachers. The working staff increased so that in 1915, still 
under the leadership of Harlan H. Ballard, it numbered twelve, 
organized in five working departments. There were then 64,000 
books in the library, and the circulation was 104,000. 

This growth was unassisted by any substantial addition to 
the relatively small permanent endowment of the institution. 
Legacies from Henry W. Taft, Dwight M. Collins, and F. A. 
Hand were of necessity devoted mostly to the payment of current 
expenses and the cost of structural repairs. Other private 
donors contributed money from time to time to provide for 
special needs or for the purchase of books of a particular sort. 
Such were, for example, the Berkshire Ministers' Club, the 
American Institute of Electrical Engineers, and the givers of the 
equipment of a children's room. But it is to be said that in 
general the growth in usefulness and size of the library of the 
Athenaeum, from 1897 to 1916, was maintained by relying 
rather upon internal economy than upon extraneous aid. 

While the enlargement of the building in 1897 appeared to 
guarantee suitable accommodation for a public library com- 
mensurate with the city's probable desires for many years, no 
relief was afforded thereby for the further development of the 
collections of natural history and art. The single room which 
could be devoted to the Athenaeum's art gallery had been filled 
in 1886 by a collection of casts of antique statuary, selected in 
Europe by Rev. C. V. Spear; and therein also had been placed 
the valuable statue of "Rebekah" by Benzoni, a generous gift 
by Mrs. Edwin Clapp. A bequest of money to the institution 
by Bradford Allen, of which the expenditure was restricted to 
works of art, became available in 1887, and by means of it 
paintings were added to the gallery; and under the will of Miss 
Elizabeth Stuart Newton the Athenaeum acquired excellent 



THE BERKSHIRE ATHENAEUM AND MUSEUM 181 

pictures, which had been obtained abroad by Miss Newton's 
father in 1845. But during the final years of the last century 
the art gallery, of which the enrichment had long been at a 
standstill, attracted only the desultory visitor. The museum, 
although in better case, so suffered from lack of room that con- 
venient arrangement of its exhibits was prohibited. In 1898 
Daniel Clark of Tyringham contributed several extraordinary 
collections of minerals, coins, and Indian and antiquarian relics, 
which were displayed on the library floor of the Athenaeum and 
not properly in the museum at all. 

In short, the trustees had been compelled to energize one 
function of the institution and to allow others to become attenuat- 
ed. The officers had felt themselves obliged to choose the de- 
partment of the Athenaeum which it was most important ade- 
quately to maintain; and they had chosen its free library. The 
intent of the founders and early benefactors was far broader, 
but it was in apparently unavoidable peril of defeat. And pre- 
cisely at this juncture the skies were brightened. 

It was in April, 1902, that the following letter was made 
public, addressed jointly to William R. Plunkett and Walter F. 
Hawkins. 

"I am prepared to carry out the purpose I have mentioned 
in my several interviews with you of erecting a building to be 
used as a Museum of Natural History and Art, and of furnishing 
the same, in part, with suitable objects of artistic and scientific 
interest, to which additions may be made from time to time by 
other friends of Berkshire County. 

"I intend to establish the Museum in Pittsfield as the most 
central and convenient accessible point for the inhabitants of 
the county in general, and to proceed with the building as soon 
as I have procured a suitable site. 

"On or before the completion of the Museum, I propose to 
convey it to a corporation or board of trustees, and shall be glad 
if you will undertake the organization of such a corporation. 

"Yours very truly, 

"Zenas Crane." 

The site selected by Mr. Crane was on the east side of South 
Street, near Park Square, and the building, which he caused to be 
erected there in 1902, was of two stories and in size seventy-four 
by forty feet. The materials were Roman brick and Indiana 



182 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

limestone, and the style was an adaptation of that of the Italian 
renaissance. The architects were Messrs. Harding and Seaver 
of Pittsfield. The building contained six exhibition rooms, and 
it was first opened to the public on April first, 1903. 

In the meantime, Mr. Crane, always having in mind the 
people of Berkshire County as the beneficiaries for whose profit 
and enjoyment the new Museum was to be established, had com- 
municated to the trustees of the Athenaeum his opinion that the 
two institutions should be under a single management. Their 
purposes were similar; their real estate was contiguous. Mr. 
Ballard, the librarian and curator of the Athenaeum, was well- 
equipped by experience to act as the curator of the Museum, 
and was willing so to act without further compensation. The 
trustees of the Athenaeum accordingly moved with grateful 
promptness. Upon their application, early in 1903, the legisla- 
ture enacted amendments to their charter, whereby the corporate 
name was altered to "The Trustees of the Berkshire Athenaeum 
and Museum of Natural History and Art", and whereby the 
corporation was authorized to elect nine additional trustees, and 
from time to time thereafter to reduce the whole number of 
trustees to not less than ten, in addition to those holding oflBce 
as representatives of the municipal government. To the officers 
of the corporation thus altered, Mr. Crane, on March thirty-first, 
1903, quietly handed his deed, conveying the new Museum and 
the land on which it was situated to the trustees. "This mag- 
nificent gift," it was by them voted, "the trustees and their suc- 
cessors will hold in their fiduciary capacity for the use and benefit 
of the public, 'to aid', in the language of the charter of the cor- 
poration of which they are the legal representatives, 'in promoting 
education, culture, and refinement.' " 

The artistic rarities and the exhibits having to do with 
natural history, which were originally placed in the Museum in 
1903, were most of them provided by the donor of the building, 
although there were generous contributions from other sources. 
Visitors were impressed not only by the high merit of the indi- 
vidual objects displayed, but also by the breadth and wisdom 
of their selection. To the thoughtful, this may have betokened 
the carefully laid scheme of one man, whose plans had a wider 



THE BERKSHIRE ATHENAEUM AND MUSEUM 183 

scope than was yet completely revealed. Few, nevertheless, fore- 
saw the great significance of Zenas Crane's continuing and artis- 
tic interest in the institution which he had given to the thankful 
people of Berkshire County. 

In September, 1904, the trustees of the Athenaeum and Mu- 
seum informed the public that Mr. Crane was ready to erect and 
equip an addition to the south of the South Street building. 
This was finished in the following year. At the same time the 
announcement was published, by the trustees, of Mr. Crane's 
willingness to provide for the future maintenance of the Museum. 
In 1909 he built and furnished a wing to the north of the original 
edifice, and in 1915 he completed the quadrilateral by the erection 
of a large addition connecting the two wings. No intimation 
was made at any time by the donor as to the cost either of the 
land utilized, or of the main building and the various additions, 
or of their contents. 

It was apprehended, however, that the mission successfully 
accomplished in the community by the Museum could not have 
been initiated and carried on solely by the expenditure of money. 
As the institution expanded, it clearly seemed to be enjoying al- 
most daily the benefit of its founder's attentive thought; nor is 
it too fanciful to say that the Museum early developed a personal 
quality, of which its enlargements did not altogether deprive it. 
Soon the Athenaeum's collections of art, of science, and of local 
history were transferred to the Museum, which began to be the 
recipient of many interesting and valuable gifts from its friends 
throughout the county. But nevertheless it remained essentially 
the expression of the taste and artistic aspiration, as it was of the 
munificence, of the one man who founded it, supported it, and 
unostentatiously and constantly enriched its collections. Reso- 
lutions of the trustees, voted at their annual meeting on June 
sixteenth, 1915, read as follows: 

"Whereas Mr. Zenas Crane is now making a large addition to 
the Art Museum, which, when finished, will complete the quad- 
rilateral of the building, and give a floor space, exclusive of the 
basement, of about 25,000 square feet; and has given this build- 
ing, with all its fittings, and the land upon which it stands and its 
appurtenances to us, as Trustees of the Berkshire Athenaeum 
and Museum, to be held by us and our successors in trust for the 



184 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

use and benefit of this and future generations free of charge 
and subject only to such reasonable rules and regulations as 
shall from time to time be made by us and by our successors; 
and 

"Whereas, Mr. Crane has placed in the building and also 
given upon the same trusts a priceless collection of works of art, 
and science, and nature, for the cultivation, education, and de- 
light of the people, to which collection additions are constantly 
being made by him; and 

"Whereas, for the last fifteen years Mr. Crane has given 
much time and thought, with the work of expert assistants, to 
the creating and development of this museum, making of it an 
institution which evokes the increasing interest of the Trustees 
and its numerous visitors; therefore be it 

"Resolved, that we do hereby assure to Mr. Zenas Crane our 
gratitude, and the gratitude of the people for whose use we ac- 
cept this gift, the cost of which he has never disclosed; and our 
appreciation of the long and devoted service he has given to the 
public welfare, as well as of the good taste and refinement shown 
in the building, the works of art, and the other exhibits; and 
the Trustees also appreciate the consideration shown for the 
comfort of visitors to the museum, and the entire freedom from 
care for the cost, maintenance, and management which has been 
assured to the Trustees; and the modesty of the giver who, doing 
his perfect work, presents his gift and keeps himself unseen, is 
by the Trustees fully realized and appreciated". 

The Museum, in 1915, contained on its ground floor five 
spacious exhibition rooms devoted to natural history, in which 
were shown collections of minerals, of botanical reproductions, of 
insects and shells, of mounted animals and birds, and in a sixth 
room was displayed a collection illustrative of American Indian 
life. On the second floor was a hall of statuary, three rooms 
wherein were collections of oriental art, of antiquities, and of 
Americana, and four rooms of paintings, which included the 
best types of modern art as well as many classical masterpieces, 
of great beauty and of extraordinary value, for among them 
were originals by Van Dyck, Rubens, Murillo, Sir Thomas 
Lawrence, Daubigny, Millais, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and 
Bouguereau. In a basement room was assembled a large collec- 
tion of local antiquarian interest. Elsewhere in the building 
were to be seen an admirable exhibit of coins and medals, pre- 
sented to the Museum by Mrs. Richard Lathers, and a number 



THE BERKSHIRE ATHENAEUM AND MUSEUM 185 

of objects of rare historical interest, such as one of the original 
Wright aeroplanes, and part of the sledging outfit which went 
to the North Pole with the Peary expedition. 

The removal to the South Street building of the contents of 
the Athenaeum's art gallery and museum permitted the dedica- 
tion to library purposes of the second floor of the original edifice 
of the Athenaeum, which was practically accomplished about 
1912. 

The presidents of the institution, with the dates of their first 
election to oflBce, have been Thomas Allen, 1872, William R. 
Plunkett, 1882, W. Russell Allen, 1904, James M. Barker, 1905, 
Walter F. Hawkins, 1906, Dr. J. F. A. Adams, 1908, and Dr. 
Henry Colt, 1914. The vice-presidents have been Gen. WilUam 
F. Bartlett, 1872, William R. Plunkett, 1876, W. Russell Allen, 
1882, James M. Barker, 1904, Walter F. Hawkins, 1905, Dr. 
Henry Colt, 1906, and William H. Swift, 1914. James M. 
Barker, Edward S. Francis, William R. Plunkett, Erwin H. 
Kennedy and George H. Tucker successively served as treasurer 
while the clerks of the corporation have been James M. Barker, 
Henry W. Taft, George Y. Learned, and Harlan H. Ballard. 

Thomas Allen died at Washington, D. C, April eighth, 1882. 
At the time of his death he was a congressman, representing 
Missouri in the House. A vivid sketch of Mr. Allen's remarkable 
career is to be found in the second volume of Smith's "History of 
Pittsfield". The later years of his life were conspicuous for 
honorable public achievement in the national capital and in St. 
Louis, the city of his adoption. His summer residence was at 
Pittsfield, the town which he loved, where he had built his 
graceful, elm-shaded mansion on the site of his famous grand- 
father's parsonage. To Mr. Allen the Athenaeum owes its ex- 
istence. "In all his active, busy life," it was written of him, 
after his death, "conducting great enterprises and involved in 
hazardous business undertakings, he never forgot nor laid aside 
his love for literature, culture, and art." Nor, it may be added, 
did he ever lay aside his affection for the home of his forefathers. 
His grave, marked by a stately obelisk, is in the Pittsfield ceme- 
tery. Nobody can rightly estimate, even now, the benefits 
which Mr. Allen's generosity conferred upon his birthplace. 



186 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

Though to Thomas Allen is due the existence of the Athe- 
naeum, its development is to be ascribed in greater measure to 
William R. Plunkett than to any other of its officers. Oppor- 
tunities of service to Pittsfield were allotted to no man of his 
generation in so great a profusion as they were to Mr. Plunkett, 
who was born in North Chester, Massachusetts, April twenty- 
third, 1831. His father, Thomas F. Plunkett, became a resident 
of Pittsfield in 1836. William R. Plunkett was educated at An- 
dover, at Yale College, and at the Harvard Law School; and 
he commenced the practice of law in Pittsfield in 1855, having 
in that year been admitted to the Berkshire bar. He was mar- 
ried twice, to Miss Elizabeth Campbell Kellogg, daughter of 
Ensign H. Kellogg, and to her sister, Miss May Kellogg. He 
died December seventh, 1903. 

Soon after Mr. Plunkett's admission to the bar, his profes- 
sional duties began to be not so often those of an advocate in the 
courts as those of an adviser, and not always of an adviser in 
matters solely legal, to financial and industrial enterprise, 
whether corporate or individual. The number was extraordi- 
narily large of local business corporations with which he came 
to be thus connected. A few conspicuous instances will here 
suffice. At the time of his death, he was and had been for 
twenty-five years president of the Berkshire Life Insurance 
Company, president for eleven years of the Pontoosuc Woolen 
Manufacturing Company, a director for thirty years, and vice- 
president for five, of the Agricultural National Bank, and treasur- 
er and practically manager for forty-seven years of the Pittsfield 
Coal Gas Company; he participated importantly in the guidance* 
from their beginnings, of the affairs of the Pittsfield Electric 
Company and of the Pittsfield Electric Street Railway Company; 
and his efforts were a factor of extreme and essential value in es- 
tablishing the city's most vital industry, that is to say, the manu- 
facture of electrical apparatus, through the organization and 
maintenance of the Stanley Electric Manufacturing Company. 

As a public servant, he was prominent for more than twenty- 
five years in the management of the Ashley waterworks. Under 
the town and fire district governments, his service on committees 
was perennial; the improvement of the Park for the reception 



THE BERKSHIRE ATHENAEUM AND MUSEUM 187 

of the Soldiers' Monument in 1872 was a notable municipal work 
forwarded by his endeavors. He represented the town in the 
General Court, and for four successive years, beginning in 1876, 
he was nominated by the Democrats of the Commonwealth for 
the office of lieutenant governor. 

Of the spirit which animated Mr. Plunkett's civic and pro- 
fessional career, no more accurate estimate can be offered to the 
reader than that published in the Springfield Republican after 
his death: 

"The better, the larger, the more prosperous and beautiful 
Pittsfield he labored for with increasing diligence and large per- 
suasiveness. In things written and said about Mr. Plunkett 
there is a note of wonderment, too closely akin to apology, that 
he did not seek some larger field for his activities. There is no 

true perspective in that This man grew in 

congenial soil and spread his roots, was open to the sun and rain 
for nourishment and not for rust upon his finer powers — an elm 
for beauty and outstretching shade. Not selfish and hard, like 
an iron post on the side of the roadway to hold up great business 
interests as typified by the street railway traffic, was he — a mere 
pillar for commercialism. In the breadth of his sympathies he 
was a remarkable citizen. The vigorous youth of his outlook 
never changed. The older generation faded away, and his own 
came into its directing responsibilities, yet he was the adviser 
and the friend of the young men to the last. There was no more 
reliable quantity in the city than Mr. Plunkett. With a quiet 
force that never flagged, he did things and inspired the doing 
of them. And all was brightened by his sparkling humor and 
geniality that was never boisterous, but ever infectious. Men 
leaned on him to a degree that they can only now measure, so 
long had he been a fixed quantity." 

Men leaned on him, indeed — all sorts of men in all sorts of 
perplexities. He had a genius for compromise and for making 
smooth the rough places in the pathway of men's lives. People 
trusted his ability to see to it, as the saying goes, that things 
were right. Countless were the burdens, large and small, of 
others which he helped to carry; and this he did without ap- 
parent effort and without ostentation. 

Mr. Plunkett, as a stalwart and mettlesome youth, was an 
officer of the village fire department and the village baseball 
nine. To the end of his days, the spectacle or the story of an 



188 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

athletic contest seldom failed to interest him, and never so failed 
if the contest chanced to be one wherein the name of Pittsfield 
was concerned. His temperament was strongly companionable; 
and the jocose, familiar, masculine intercourse of clubs and social 
gatherings was very much to his liking. He loved to play with 
children, and they with him. Not many men had an apprecia- 
tion at once so keen and so kindly for amusing character and 
incident, while from taking himself too seriously he seemed al- 
ways to be prevented by the same philosophical, Irish sense of 
humor. He was a leading figure in the affairs of the First Congrega- 
tional parish, doing duty often as one of its financial officers and 
for more than twenty-five years as librarian of the church's 
Sunday school. Many of the charitable organizations of the 
town and city regularly came to him for counsel, and this was 
true conspicuously in the cases of the House of Mercy and the 
Bishop Memorial Training School for Nurses. 

But of the scores of institutions and undertakings which en- 
gaged Mr. Plunkett's active support, the one to which he was 
most fondly devoted was the Berkshire Athenaeum. The im- 
pulse which resulted in its incorporation was guided by him, he 
was a member of the original board of trustees, he was in 1882 
chosen president, and in that office he served for twenty-one 
years, until the day of his death. His service was not casual or 
perfunctory. "We generally met", said one of the officers, 
"simple to record and adopt what with infinite labor and pro- 
longed thought he had devised for the Athenaeum — it was the 
pride and joy of his heart." 

The controlling principle of this labor and thought was that 
the library should be conducted not for the benefit in chief of a 
scholarly and cultured few, but for the benefit of the average 
man and woman and their children. His earnest desire was so 
to develop the library that the use of its books might become an 
everyday part of the everyday lives of all the everyday people 
in the city of Pittsfield. With this purpose, he was minded to 
permit no obstacle to block its growth; and in behalf of its in- 
terests, as he saw them, he was never unready to plan, to act, and 
to contend, nor was he willing to spare himself. In testimony of 
this, another excerpt from the record book of the corporation 
may fittingly close this chapter: 



THE BERKSHIRE ATHENAEUM AND MUSEUM 189 

"There were not wanting, in the years during which Mr. 
Plunkett's constant care and thought were so given, instances in 
which were needed high courage, the utmost clearness of appre- 
ciation and great wisdom in matters of vital importance. Among 
them was the erection of the new library building, which involved 
the taking of additional land and the necessity of relying for 
current support upon the inhabitants of Pittsfield in their cor- 
porate capacity ; also the amalgamation under the present charter 
of the old Athenaeum with the noble institution founded by Mr. 
Zenas Crane. In large matters, as well as in those of every day, 
Mr. Plunkett's service has been both constant and fine. It 
brought the Athenaeum through the period of transition from 
town to city life, kept it even with the needs of the community, 
and transmuted it from an institution dependent upon the liber- 
ality of individuals into an agency of the city to afford to all its 
people what is best and most effective in giving the highest 
training and the most refined and uplifting knowledge." 



CHAPTER XIII 
YOUNG PEOPLE'S ASSOCIATIONS 

IN the organized work of helping the young men and the 
boys of Pittsfield to become worthy citizens, the direct in- 
fluence of the churches and the public schools has been re- 
inforced through the substantial aid given by friends to three 
local institutions — the Young Men's Christian Association, the 
Father Mathew Total Abstinence Society, and the Boys' Club. 
Especially after 1900, all these developed marked usefulness, 
and for each of them, between the years 1906 and 1913, a com- 
modious and suitable building was erected. Of the three, the 
total membership in 1915 was about 4,000, or one-tenth of the 
city's population. The cost of the three new buildings was ap- 
proximately $290,000. 

Attempts were not infrequent during the last century to es- 
tablish in the village of Pittsfield associations of young men with 
the serious purpose of moral and intellectual improvement. 
They took usually the somewhat forbidding aspect of debating 
clubs. The earliest attempt of considerable service was in 1831, 
when was organized the Young Men's Society. Among the 
leaders were Henry Colt and Theodore Pomeroy. The associa- 
tion collected a library of 300 volumes and occupied a small hall 
in "Dr. Clough's new building" on North Street near Park 
Square, for which it paid an annual rental of $50, and which it 
sublet occasionally for "preaching to the Blacks", according to 
its surviving record book. The members were regaled by weekly 
lectures and debates; the expenses were defrayed by the pro- 
ceeds of a subscription paper, circulated annually among the 
townspeople, by whom the society was much esteemed. Not by 
all the inhabitants, however, for on January thirteenth, 1835, 
it was voted "to refer the subject of disturbances by Boys to the 
Board of Directors," and the next debate was on the appropriate 



YOUNG PEOPLE'S ASSOCIATIONS 191 

question: "Are Knowledge and Civilization conducive to Human 
Happiness?" In 1850 the society disbanded. 

A far more ambitious and elaborate organization was the 
Young Men's Association which began to flourish in 1865, and 
became extinct in 1873. This society had its home in the Dun- 
ham block on North Street, where it offered to its members many 
attractions, ranging from billiards to a cabinet of scientific curi- 
osities. The president, during the greater part of the existence 
of the association, was Thomas Colt, who was accustomed to 
make good the annual and apparently inevitable financial de- 
ficit. When Mr. Colt retired from office, the deficiency became 
troublesome, and the organization soon collapsed. 

This experience discouraged further attempts on like lines 
for several years, during which no place of general association 
was provided for the young men of the town. They had, of 
course, numerous informal and literary clubs, while the various 
churches, and notably St. Joseph's, possessed young men's so- 
cieties, of which the function was not solely religious. The 
Business Men's Association, founded in 1881, began almost 
immediately to be a club rather than a board of trade. Pitts- 
field's volunteer fire companies maintained clubrooms customari- 
ly well-ordered, and the advantages of secret and fraternal socie- 
ties were enjoyed by the favored. But nothing of this sort was 
available distinctively for the town's young men, as a class. 
The need was obvious. 

The national Young Men's Christian Association was seen 
first in Western Massachusetts at Springfield, where a branch of 
it was established by employees of the railroad. The Pittsfield 
Young Men's Christian Association was formed on April twenty- 
third, 1885. The first president was Alexander Kennedy. 
In October, 1885, headquarters were opened on the third floor of 
the block next north of the building of the Berkshire Life Insur- 
ance Company. The rooms were cramped, hard to reach, and 
unattractive; but it was possible to maintain, in addition to the 
religious meetings, some educational classes, a bureau of em- 
ployment, and a boarding house register, and thus to fill a 
space theretofore vacant in the town's life. The association was 
incorporated in 1886, and a building fund was started under the 



192 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

presidency of George Shipton in 1887, by an unknown donor who 
left ten dollars for that purpose on the treasurer's desk; to this 
nucleus a women's faithful auxiliary society, organized with 
thirty-five members in 1885, was able to make some contribu- 
tions. 

On April twelfth, 1888, the Pittsfield Y. M. C. A., with 170 
members, dedicated rooms in the Wollison brick block on North 
Street. These consisted of a good sized assembly hall, a boys' 
room, and an elementary gymnasium. The association began 
to regard itself with satisfaction, and to be aware that the com- 
munity at large was responsive to its efforts. 

The membership so increased that 279 names were on the 
list in 1891. William A. Whittlesey was in that year the presi- 
dent. He was a man of contagious enthusiasm, and under his 
leadership an endeavor was first actually made to obtain for the 
association a home of its own. In 1890, a Thanksgiving Day 
gift from William H. Chamberlin, who was a stanch friend of the 
Y. M. C. A., had added $1,000 to the little building fund, and a 
bequest from Mrs. Almiron D. Francis raised the total amount 
to more than $6,000 in 1892. In the latter year a canvass of the 
citizens produced funds sufficient to warrant the purchase of a 
wooden building on the east side of North Street, which occupied 
the present site of the Majestic Theater, between Fenn Street 
and the railroad. In order to raise money for the equipment of 
the upper part of the building, which the association purposed to 
utilize, a pretentious and then novel entertainment was presented 
at the Academy of Music in August, 1893. This attracted the 
public every day for a week, and, having nearly 300 participants, 
served to arouse much general interest in the association. 

In 1894 the Y. M. C. A. was in settled possession of its newly 
acquired property and of most of the facilities, albeit on a modest 
scale, which it required — assembly and recreation rooms, class- 
rooms, and a small, but well-equipped, gymnasium, with lockers 
and shower baths. The population of the city, however, was 
growing rapidly, and growing in such a way that many of the new 
residents were young men of the sort naturally attracted to the 
Y. M. C. A. It was not long before the Pittsfield association 
again felt the disadvantage of inadequate quarters. Mr. 



YOUNG PEOPLE'S ASSOCIATIONS 193 

Whittlesey continued to be an energetic president until 1900, 
when he was succeeded by William H. Chamberlin. In 1902 
the work of the association was greatly invigorated by the en- 
gagement, as general secretary, of Edward N. Huntress; and 
in 1903, soon after Mr. Chamberlin had been followed in the 
presidency by Samuel G. Colt, plans to provide for the pur- 
chase of another site and the erection of a new building assumed 
more or less definite shape. 

By this time the association had enlisted the support of a 
large number of business and professional men, among whom 
was John P. Merrill. To him fell the privilege of announcing, 
in the fall of 1905, the gift to the association of seven acres 
of land adjacent to Pontoosuc Lake. The donors were Miss 
Hannah Merrill and some of her relatives; and the property, 
including a grove of lordly pines, afforded to the association a 
desirable summer camping ground. To this the association 
added by purchase a tract of fourteen acres bordered by the lake; 
and in 1914 James D. Shipton gave to the association a tract of 
forty -five acres to the east of its holdings. 

The selection for the site of a new building was made public 
in the summer of 1906. The land chosen was on the south corner 
of North and Melville Streets, the frontage on North Street being 
about one hundred feet. Part of it, where stood the Number 
Three fire engine house, was purchased from the city, and the 
price paid for the entire plot by the association was $50,000. 
A public campaign to raise money wherewith to increase the 
building fund was organized in December of 1908, and was the 
most systematic, thorough, and spirited which Pittsfield had 
witnessed up to that time in behalf of any philanthropic object. 
The collectors, arrayed in competitive squads, met daily to hear 
inspiring speeches, and to advance the hand of a huge dial, which 
was displayed on North Street to indicate the progress of the 
subscription. $14.,000 was raised in six days. Over 2,000 
people contributed. The Women's Auxiliary, now numbering 
300 members, raised $5,000; a bequest from Franklin W. Rus- 
sell increased the general fund by nearly $100,000; and a gift 
from the heirs of WilUam E. Tillotson added $25,000 to the 
building fund. 



194 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

The corner stone of the new building was laid August jBrst, 
1909. The architects were Messrs. Harding and Seaver of 
Pittsfield. Their plans were for a four-story structure of brick. 
On the third and fourth floors were arranged seventy -four sleep- 
ing rooms. The design provided a spacious auditorium, a 
Women's Auxiliary room, executive offices, classrooms, a res- 
taurant, reading and recreation rooms, bowling alleys, and a 
gymnasium, having a floor space of 3,000 square feet and equip- 
ped with shower baths and lockers, and, in the basement, a 
swimming pool. These plans having been executed, the build- 
ing was formally opened on September fifteenth, 1910. The 
cost was approximately $185,000. In completeness of equip- 
ment and adaptability to its purposes, the building was the equal 
of any Y. M. C. A. headquarters in the state. Viewed as a mat- 
ter of policy, the erection of the new building appears to have 
been almost immediately justified. The membership was 730 in 
January, 1910, and at the close of the year it had more than 
doubled. In 1915 the membership was about 1,500. 

The presidency of Samuel G. Colt was followed by that of 
William J. Raybold, who is now in oflace. The present treasurer, 
George Shipton, has for twenty-nine years so served the associa- 
tion. The ability of Edward N. Huntress, the present general 
secretary, has been, since 1902, of marked help to the organiza- 
tion. Of the other officers and directors, whose co-operation has 
been especially valuable, a long list might be made, for the asso- 
ciation has engaged the active support of many men; conspicu- 
ous among them have been Alexander Kennedy, Joseph E. 
Peirson, Irving D. Ferrey, William H. Chamberlin, Allen H. 
Bagg, William A. Whittlesey, Charles L. Hibbard, Charles Mc- 
Kernon, and George H. Cooper. 

Father Purcell, the beloved priest of St. Joseph's for many 
years, was apparently a placid, easy-going man, but he was able 
to animate the priests who from time to time assisted him with a 
spirit of unusual activity. His assistant in 1874 was Rev. 
Thomas N. Smythe. Father Smythe, devoting himself in par- 
ticular to the younger people of the church, was a firm believer 
in organization; and the strong impulse created by a recent 
temperance mission gave him the opportunity to form the Pitts- 



YOUNG PEOPLE'S ASSOCIATIONS 19.5 

field Catholic Total Abstinence and Benevolent Society. The 
first meeting was held in February, 1874, and the first president 
was Clement Coogan. The society had about 400 members — a 
men's association of a size then without example in the village. 

Father Smythe left Pittsfield in the following June. Perhaps 
the society was deprived too soon of the inspiring direction of its 
founder; perhaps the scheme of organization, which included a 
modest system of insurance against illness and death, was too 
unwieldy; perhaps the hard times of the period affected the col- 
lection of dues. At any rate, the membership list began to 
shrink. In August, 1877, the decision was made to abandon the 
system of pecuniary benefits and to change the name of the 
association to the Father Mathew Total Abstinence Society. In 
1878 the number of members had dwindled to twenty-five. 
The society was probably on the point of extinction, and that it 
survived this crisis was owing in chief to the efforts of William 
J. Cullen, Daniel W. Devanney, and William Nugent. A series 
of entertainments was devised, the hospitable aid of the ladies 
of the parish was enlisted, meetings were enlivened by good 
speeches and songs, and the association was revivified. The 
Father Mathew Ladies' Aid Society was formed in 1880, and 
has been from the beginning a helpful institution, both to its 
own members and to the F. M. T. A. 

In 1879 the F. M. T. A., under the presidency of William 
Nugent, had its home in the Martin block on Park Square, and 
in 1885 was established in the Gamwell block on Columbus 
Avenue. Thence the society journeyed up and down North 
Street until 1908, when it moved into quarters in the City Sav- 
ings Bank block, at the corner of North and Fenn Streets. The 
presidents during this period of migration and growth were 
William Nugent, James E. Murphy, Frank Larkin, T. J. Nelli- 
gan, William J. Cullen, Edward H. Cullen, William A. Fahey, 
James F. McCue, James Farrell, John H. Kelly, and Robert F. 
Stanton. William Nugent and William A. Fahey were the 
treasurers of longest service. While many thoughtful men and 
women of Pittsfield by no means lacked appreciation at this 
time of the moral and social value to the community of the work 
of the F. M. T. A., interest was aroused among the general, and 



196 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

especially the youthful, populace by the corps of cadets, or- 
ganized by the members of the society in 1883. The proficiency 
in drill, acquired under the instruction of William H. MarshaU, 
won much distinction for the corps throughout Massachusetts, 
for it was then the custom of the various Father Mathew Socie- 
ties in each diocese to celebrate an annual field day, of which the 
principal event was a competitive drill by their cadet companies. 

The F. M. T. A. diocesan field day in Pittsfield in September, 
1890, was a noteworthy local festival of the period. The streets 
were decorated along the line of march of the parade, wherein 
were counted twenty bands and drum corps and over 2,000 mem- 
bers of Father Mathew Societies from the five western counties 
of the state. A dinner at the fair grounds on Wahconah Street 
refreshed the paraders, and there they listened to addresses, 
watched the drill, a baseball game, and a balloon ascension, and 
marveled at an exhibition by Hudson Maxim of a newly invented 
machine gun using smokeless powder. A more impressive ex- 
hibit seems to have been the numbers and demeanor of the 
assembled young men. 

Beginning in 1893, the growth of St. Joseph's was such that 
the parish was divided again and again, and of course this 
growth broadened correspondingly the possible field of usefulness 
of the local F. M. T. A. The society was so circumstanced, 
however, that even the most earnest members could hardly en- 
courage themselves for several years in the hope of erecting a 
building which would enable them to make the most of their in- 
creasing opportunities. Nevertheless, a building fund was slowly 
and laboriously accumulated, and at length, in 1896, a lot was 
purchased on the south side of Melville Street. Meanwhile, not 
only was the society gaining strength, but also the people of the 
city were becoming wider awake to the fact that worthy associa- 
tional work among young men and boys safeguards the welfare 
of the entire community. In the spring of 1911 the officers of 
the society determined to present their case to the public at 
large, and to solicit subscriptions to their building fund. The 
president was then Robert F. Stanton, the treasurer was Wil- 
liam A. Fahey, and upon the board of governors were Rev. 
Michael J. O'Connell, Bartley Cummings, James Henchey, 



YOUNG PEOPLE'S ASSOCIATIONS 197 

George E. Haynes, Daniel F. Farrell, Fred Volin, John H. Kelly, 
James W. Synan and T. J. Nelligan. Their zeal was rewarded. 
The ten-days' campaign produced a fund of $47,000, to which 
about 3,500 persons contributed, without regard to affiliation of 
any sort whatever. The result was striking evidence of the 
popular estimate of the society's work, and evidence no less 
striking of the popular solidarity of Pittsfield in the support of 
good causes. 

The brick F. M, T. A. building of three stories on Melville 
Street was completed in 1913 and dedicated on March twenty- 
second of that year. The third floor, with parlors, dining hall, 
and kitchen, was assigned to the Ladies' Aid Society. The sec- 
ond floor was planned for the use of the senior members of the 
F. M. T. A., providing an assembly hall, a library, and recreation 
rooms. The offices of the society, and the accommodations for 
junior members, were arranged on the street floor; and the 
basement contained bathrooms and locker rooms, bowling alleys, 
and handball courts. The gymnasium, with a height of two 
stories, had a floor space of 3,750 square feet. The cost of the 
building, furnished and equipped, was computed to be $65,000. 
The architect was George E. Haynes of Pittsfield. 

In 1914, the presidency of Robert F. Stanton was succeeded 
by that of William A. Fahey, who then served for two years, 
after which Mr. Stanton was again chosen. The membership 
in 1915 was approximately 800, and the Ladies' Aid Society had 
about 200 members. A general secretary was engaged when the 
new building was occupied; and religious, social, educational, 
and athletic activities are successfully carried on, along the lines 
best approved in modern associational work. An important 
branch of the association, of recent development, is the junior 
section, numbering about 200 boys. The educational privileges 
offered to the members of the Ladies' Aid Society in their pleasant 
rooms have been so extended as to include instruction in modern 
languages, cooking, current events, physical culture, and sewing. 

The local organizations whose history this chapter has now 
briefly narrated have many counterparts in other cities, but the 
Pittsfield institution about to be described is in many respects 
unique in New England, if not in the United States. 



198 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

Boys' clubs on a small scale were known in Pittsfield soon 
after 1880; and in 1888 Joseph E. Peirson read a paper on the 
subject before the Monday Evening Club. A few years later, a 
boys' club was formed by the Union for Home Work, and con- 
ducted by some of the volunteer officers of that Pittsfield charity 
and their friends in its house on Fenn Street. The enrolment, in 
1896, was about 200, but lack of room prohibited the attendance 
of members except in small detachments. Under these circum- 
stances, no systematic or purposeful work could even be at- 
tempted, and the undertaking was soon abandoned. 

The boys' club idea, however, had been firmly planted in the 
larger cities; and the National Boys' Club Association had been 
organized, a philanthropic enterprise now extinct, which had 
headquarters in Springfield. Under the nominal auspices of this 
association, but actually initiated and supported by Zenas Crane 
of Dalton, a boys' club was opened in Pittsfield, on March fifth, 
1900, in a room in the Renne building on Fenn Street. For 
this club were obtained the services, as local treasurer, of Henry 
A. Brewster, and, as superintendent, of Prentice A. Jordan, who 
then came to Pittsfield from Salem, Massachusetts, where he had 
acquired some experience in a similar position. The possible 
value of the club to the city was perceived by several business 
men. They met on June fifth, 1900, incorporated themselves 
under the name of the Boys' Club of Pittsfield, and chose William 
C. Stevenson, John McQuaid, Henry A. Brewster, Henry R. 
Peirson, William D. Maclnnes, and Arthur A. Mills to serve on 
the board of directors. Mr. Stevenson was elected president. 

In the following September, the club, having an enrolment of 
600 boys, rented additional rooms in the Renne building, and 
was ready to experiment with a venture which has since become 
its most distinctive and vital function — that is to say, vocational 
training. During the next five years, classes were organized, 
each under an efficient instructor, in light carpentry, mechanical 
drawing, sign lettering, shoemaking, free-hand drawing, and 
clay modeling. Chiefly of their own volition, the boys flocked to 
the classrooms. Their self-inspired eagerness was significant. 
It was ascribable, of course, to the natural desire of the average 
boy "to do things", and to do things better than the other fellow 



YOUNG PEOPLE'S ASSOCIATIONS 199 

does them. The characteristic and peculiar feature of the devel- 
opment of the Pittsfield Boys' Club was that this desire, the 
proper means of its gratification having been supplied, was left 
in great part to itself. Thus the club was developed in response 
to the wholesome demands of the boys themselves, and sought 
neither to prove nor to disprove any cut and dried theory of 
sociological pundits. 

No fees were charged, and the club was dependent wholly 
upon current donations for financial support. An appeal, how- 
ever, to the central office of the National Boys' Club Association 
was always answered by a liberal contribution from an unknown 
donor. In 1905 his identity was disclosed, when Zenas Crane 
offered to erect and to give to the club a building, with funds 
sufficient for its maintenance, upon the sole condition that boys 
of the town of Dalton should share the privileges of membership 
with the boys of Pittsfield. The club had then been in existence 
only five years. That in this brief period it had made its merit 
sufficiently apparent to justify a gift of this character was not 
the least creditable of its achievements. 

Messrs. Harding and Seaver of Pittsfield were the architects 
of the three-story brick building, which was erected on the south 
side of Melville Street and dedicated on March nineteenth, 1906. 
The building contained an auditorium, with a seating capacity of 
500, a library and recreation rooms, eight classrooms, a gymna- 
sium, bowling alleys and bathrooms. It was believed that the 
land, construction, and equipment represented an outlay of 
about $50,000. In the rear of the original building, Mr. Crane 
later provided a gymnasium, with floor dimensions of forty-five 
by eighty feet. This was opened in 1910, and allowed the devo- 
tion of more space in the main building to vocational training. 
Such space soon became necessary. 

Established in its new quarters, the club raised its enrolment 
to 1,600 in 1915. The branches of free instruction offered in 
the Fenn Street rooms were continued with greatly bettered and 
of course enlarged facilities, and classes in typewriting and elec- 
trical fitting were added. The school of music, a department of 
the club supported and guided by Mrs. Frederic S. Coolidge, 
gained steadily in value. For the younger boys, a story-telling 



200 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

section was organized. A "Round Table Club" and a "Lyceum 
Society" were instituted, giving their members the advantage of 
listening to counsel preparatory to the selection of a trade or pro- 
fession, and with the object of adjusting their abilities to social 
and economic needs. Above all, adherence was maintained to 
the fundamental principle of the club, that its activities should 
express the healthful aspirations of the boys themselves. The 
fact that the club thus became with increasing effect a free school 
where a boy might learn a trade and, what is more, where he 
might learn the direction of that natural ability for some trade 
which most boys possess, was due primarily to the boys' own 
wish. 

Annually, in the summer and the autumn, the management 
of the club forms leagues of baseball and football teams, repre- 
senting the different public schools of the city of grammar school 
grade, and each series of games is played under its supervision. 
Contests in basketball and bowling are arranged during the 
winter in the gymnasium, where skilled athletic instructors are 
employed, and where it is sought, as in the other departments of 
the club, to satisfy every wholesome desire of average, normal 
boyhood. It was with this object in view that a farm was ac- 
quired in 1909 on the southeastern border of Richmond Pond; 
and a summer camp was opened for the enjoyment and profit 
of the club members. A bequest from Franklin W. Russell to 
the club was largely devoted to this purpose, and his name was 
therefore given to the farm and the camp, which in 1915 utilized 
about 200 acres of land. 

But, after all, vocational training, without cost to the learners 
or to the municipal treasury, remains the chief and practical 
benefit which the development of the Boys' Club has secured to 
the community of Pittsfield. Supported by yearly subscribers 
and by the generosity of Zenas Crane, the club has become a free 
school of thrift, of which the tendency is to make the rational 
choice of a trade, and the learning of the rudiments of that trade, 
not only possible but attractive. Furthermore, the club serves 
to fuse not inconsiderably the varying racial and sectarian ele- 
ments of the youthful population, for the membership is unre- 
stricted, and the enrolment begins entirely anew every autumn. 



YOUNG PEOPLE'S ASSOCIATIONS 201 

Nor does the influence of the institution over those who have 
shared its advantages cease when they have been graduated by- 
age from active membership. An alumni association was volun- 
tarily formed in 1914, and from this have been chosen officers of 
the directorate and instructors for the classrooms. 

William C. Stevenson, now the president, has continuously 
served in that capacity since the organization of the club. The 
successive treasurers have been Henry A. Brewster, Edward B. 
Hull, Frank Bonney, and Charles F. Reid, Jr. Besides Mr. 
Stevenson, the only director now in office who was on the original 
board is John McQuaid, chairman of the house committee. 
Prentice A. Jordan, the present superintendent, has served the 
club also from its birth, and with a lively understanding of boy- 
hood and rare devotion to purpose has wrought a great part of 
its success. 

While the social and educational results accomplished in 
Pittsfield for their members by the Working Girls' Club and the 
Business Women's Club may be likened to those effected by the 
three organizations which have been named in this chapter, and 
may therefore permit a certain classification with them, a sharp 
distinction is to be drawn between the two groups so far as their 
methods of maintenance are concerned. The Working Girls' 
Club and the Business Women's Club, being in essence private 
associations, have been self-governing and self-reliant, have never 
appealed to the community for any financial assistance, and have 
been supported democratically by their members, share and 
share alike. 

The Working Girls' Club was formed on November fifteenth, 
1890, according to a plan suggested by Miss Grace Dodge of 
New York, an authority of experience with similar associations, 
who was invited to Pittsfield to explain such organizations by the 
members of the Winter Nights Club. The local Working Girls' 
Club began with 125 members and in rooms in the Backus build- 
ing, on Bank Row. Classes were maintained in stenography, 
dressmaking, physical culture, and other branches; and the 
membership fee was twenty-five cents a month. The club en- 
countered early vicissitudes. In 1894, when times were hard 
and employment was scarce, the number of members was reduced 



202 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

to forty. Nevertheless, they clung fast to the principle, as they 
have ever done, that the club should be self-sustaining, and 
should never circulate a public subscription paper. When the 
rent was too large for the girls themselves to pay, the accommo- 
dations were reduced, and no wealthy friend was permitted to 
replenish the treasury. The club was maintained and conducted 
by, and not for, its young women. 

The membership list showed seventy names in 1895, when 
classes were added in English literature, cooking, dancing, and 
vocal music, and after that year the club grew steadily and 
healthfully. Rooms in the Backus building were occupied by 
the club during the first two years of its career, and the next 
twelve were spent in the wooden Wollison building, on North 
Street. The club moved to the Blatchford building on North 
Street in 1904. There the club was enabled to make more at- 
tractive its social life and to indicate more emphatically the 
possibilities of an associational center for the wage-earning girls 
of the city. 

In 1910 several Pittsfield men and women, whom these pos- 
sibilities impressed, incorporated themselves under the name of 
the Young Women's Home Association, for the purpose of pro- 
viding better quarters for leasing to the Working Girls' Club and 
to any kindred organizations which might be formed in the 
future. The Young Women's Home Association, of which the 
president has been William C. Stevenson since its incorporation, 
at once refitted the third floor of the former Backus block, now 
the Park Building, and in 1910 became the landlord of the Work- 
ing Girls' Club, which thus found itself on the twentieth anni- 
versary of its birth again in its birthplace, and with the oppor- 
tunities of enjoyment and benefit for its members greatly ex- 
tended. Some of the officers to whom much of the credit for 
the hard-won success of the W^orking Girls' Club must be as- 
cribed have been Miss Martha G. B. Clapp, Miss Mary J. Lin- 
ton, and Miss Ara M. West. 

Meanwhile had been formed the Business Women's Club. 
It was organized on January sixteenth, 1909, by fourteen young 
women of the Methodist Church, meeting at the parsonage with 
Mrs. C. L. Leonard, who was the first president. The member- 



YOUNG PEOPLE'S ASSOCIATIONS 203 

ship, upon which no sectarian restrictions were placed, increased 
rapidly. In 1910 the club had its rooms in the Wright building 
on North Street, and its purpose was like that of the Working 
Girls' Club, to which it was akin also in the democratic principle 
of self-reliance and self-support. 

The Young Women's Home Association offered a home to the 
Business Women's Club in the summer of 1910, and the latter, 
in the fall of that year, was installed in rooms on the third floor 
of the Park Building, which were partly occupied by its sister 
society, the Working Girls' Club. Early in 1911 the Home As- 
sociation leased the upper floor of the adjacent Martin block on 
Bank Row, connected it with the third floor of the Park Building, 
and equipped it for use by the two clubs. In these commodious 
quarters both organizations prospered immediately and amicably. 
During the month of February of 1911, for example, the total 
attendance was 2,605, and forty-nine classes were well patronized, 
in domestic science, current events, giving first aid to the in- 
jured, gymnastics, dancing, sewing, and millinery. A dramatic 
club was formed. The parlors and reading room, and a res- 
taurant under the supervision of a housekeeper, were pleasant 
attractions. The officers whose efforts were of especial value in 
guiding the affairs of the Business Women's Club were Mrs. C. 
L. Leonard, Mrs. J. L. Gilmore, Mrs. H. L. Dawes, and Dr. 
Mary Anna Wood. 

An informal but successful attempt made in 1911 by members 
of both clubs to interest girls of the public schools in gymnastics 
and folk dancing caused the organization in January, 1913, of 
the Girls' League, to which the Home Association allotted rooms 
on the second floor of the Park Building. Miss Gertrude A. J. 
Peaslee was employed as general secretary for this league of 
younger girls, and in addition to the instruction offered in danc- 
ing and physical culture, a class was formed for nature study, 
and a cooking school was organized. The league was initiated 
by and under the direction of the Young Women's Home Associa- 
tion. 

It was on February twenty-second, 1914, that the ultimate 
intention of the association was revealed. Announcement was 
then made, to an enthusiastic audience gathered in the assembly 



204 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

hall in the Park Building, that an unnamed, and now a still un- 
named, donor had made the association owner of a lot on the east 
corner of East and First Streets, in dimensions about 130 by 190 
feet, and of a sum of money sufficient to erect an adequate build- 
ing thereon for occupancy by the Working Girls' Club, the Busi- 
ness Women's Club, and the Girls' League. 

The possession of this land and this fund by the Young 
Women's Home Association may be said, if one is inclined to 
discount the future a trifle, to complete Pittsfield's equipment for 
promoting the social, physical, industrial, and moral welfare of 
boys and girls, and of young men and young women. The 
thought and conscientious effort which have been rewarded by 
the provision of this equipment, and some of which are suggested 
in the foregoing pages, have been other than ordinary. The 
thought and the effort have constituted, during the first quarter- 
century of the city's existence, an important part of the city's 
domestic life, and a record of them and their results are a part 
not unimportant of the city's history. 



CHAPTER XIV 
THE HOUSE OF MERCY 

THE charitable desire to establish a public hospital in Pitts- 
field was first made practically manifest in 1872, when 
Mrs. Thomas S. O'SuUivan placed $100 for such a purpose 
in the hands of Rev. John Todd of the First Church. The gift 
was an immediate response to a suggestion made by Dr. Todd in 
a Thanksgiving Day sermon, and it was followed by the offer of 
the same sum by William Durant, whose Pittsfield property 
then included a section of pasture land near the present line of 
Second Street. 

It is not to be supposed, of course, that before this time the 
needs of the sick, to whom the straits of circumstance denied a 
proper care, were disregarded by the good people of the village. 
There were always many Pittsfield women of whose daily oc- 
cupations a part was a visit to some humble invalids, nor were the 
Pittsfield physicians of former generations less generously heedful 
to the call of distress than are the doctors of today. Dr. Henry 
H. Childs, in the ante-bellum era when flourished the medical 
college on South Street, had urged the establishment of a hos- 
pital in connection with the free clinics at the school. Later, in 
1871, the Eagle was authorized to say that "a gentleman of 
wealth, a resident of the county and a graduate of the Berkshire 
Medical Institute, has offered to give $50,000 toward the estab- 
lishment of a county hospital, provided as much more can be 
raised." But a public hospital necessarily meant then to the 
American layman a large and an expensive institution. This 
country possessed no charitable hospitals except in the great 
cities. The notion that one could be supported by a small com- 
munity seemed, in 1872, utterly chimerical. The popular mind 
vaguely conceived organized hospital relief on the vast and tragic 
scale exhibited in the Civil War. When Mrs. O'Sullivan and 



206 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

Mr. Durant offered two hundred dollars to Dr. Todd for the 
nucleus of a hospital fund, it was seriously estimated that half a 
million would be needed to erect and maintain a hospital for 
Pittsfield, then a town of about 10,000 inhabitants. 

In 1874, there drifted across the sea from England, to find 
lodgment in the receptive brains of Pittsfield women, the idea 
of the cottage hospital for rural communities. It was expressed 
in a little book by an English physician, who believed that the 
essentials of a hospital were a roof, a bed, and a nurse, and that 
philanthropy, working in its ordinary channels, could always be 
relied upon to provide food and medical care. Considered from 
this point of view, the hospital problem in Pittsfield was plainly 
simplified. A massive building, manned by a permanent medical 
staff and supplied with the paraphernalia of Bellevue or the 
Massachusetts General, was seen to be unnecessary. Beginning 
about 1859, England had been dotted with these cottage hos- 
pitals; the first of them established in the United States was at 
Pittsfield, and by Pittsfield women; and its first advocates were 
Mrs. W. E. Vermilye, Miss Sarah D. Todd, Mrs. W. M. Root, 
and Mrs. Thomas F. Plunkett, who met to talk it over, one June 
morning, in Mrs. Plunkett's garden. 

It was then decided that newspaper notices should announce 
a meeting of women in the "lecture room" of the First Church, 
on June twentieth, 1874. Dr. J. F. A. Adams was asked to ad- 
dress it. Dr. Adams was already an experienced student of hos- 
pital science, but it appears that he wisely divorced his remarks, 
at that initial meeting, from technical detail. He presented the 
hospital question, so far as it concerned Pittsfield, as one of 
household management and housewifely ability; and his au- 
dience of New England housewives, who might have been con- 
fused or discouraged by medical terms and a string of statistical 
figures, felt sure that here was a field of public service where they 
would be energetically at home. They determined immediately 
to form an association of women for the purpose of raising money 
to found a cottage hospital in Pittsfield. 

The method selected, that of holding a "bazar" or over- 
grown church fair, probably commended itself merely because 
it was familiar, and it might now be considered neither econom- 



THE HOUSE OF MERCY 207 

ical nor efficient; but it enlisted the arduous preparatory labor 
of so many individuals that its reward was not measurable in 
money. No event of a similar character ever had so stirred the 
town or promoted, to such a degree, a fraternal relation among 
its Christian people. In the meantime, sympathy with the 
undertaking was emphatically quickened by the piteous death, 
at the village lockup, of the victim of a railroad accident. The 
wooden police station on School Street, primitive and unclean, 
was then the town's only emergency hospital and public mor- 
tuary chapel. Its shameful condition was vividly described in a 
stinging letter by Rev. John F. Clymer, which a local newspaper 
published after the fatal accident; and the community was there- 
by the more forcibly impelled to action. 

"The Grand Union Hospital Bazar" was opened on Septem- 
ber fifteenth, 1874, at the lecture room of the First Church, and 
was continued for five days. Decorated booths for the sale of 
useful and ornamental articles were equipped by the women of 
various churches and social organizations, a restaurant catered to 
the multitude, a series of concerts was presented, and in an ante- 
room Col. Walter Cutting regaled spectators with feats of leger- 
demain. At the close of the bazar, the managers found them- 
selves in possession of nearly $6,000. A portion of this had come 
in the form of direct donations of cash. The people of St. 
Joseph's Church, for example, thus helped generously; their sub- 
scription was headed by Father Purcell, and of the box which con- 
tained the contribution of his parishioners, the treasurer of the 
bazar wrote: "First came the tens, and fives, and twos, and ones 
in bills, then followed package after package of 'shin-plasters' — 
the little bills of war times — and finally roll after roll of pennies, 
carefully counted and marked." Here evidently was a project 
which had captured the popular heart. 

Legal incorporation was soon effected, and on November 
twenty-seventh, 1874, a charter was granted by the Common- 
wealth to fourteen women, who had associated themselves, ac- 
cording to its terms, "for the purpose of establishing and main- 
taining in Pittsfield, a House of Mercy, for the care of the sick 
and disabled, whether in indigent circumstances or not". The 
name, House of Mercy, seemed to carry with it a certain bene- 



208 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

diction, for Dr. John Todd, who had suggested it in the Thanks- 
giving Day sermon already mentioned, had died in 1873. The 
by-laws provided that the members of the corporation should be 
the incorporators and "such other persons as shall be chosen 
members by the Corporation, and shall accept membership 
therein by signing the by-laws, and by paying annually three 
dollars." The first oflBcers elected by the corporation were: presi- 
dent, Mrs. John Todd; vice-presidents, Mrs. C. H. Bigelow, Mrs. 
W. E. Vermilye, Mrs. T. F. Plunkett, and Miss Sarah D. Todd; 
clerk, Miss Sarah E. Sandys; treasurer, Mrs. W. M. Root; 
corresponding secretary, Mrs. E. H. Kellogg; recording secre- 
tary, Mrs. N. F. Lamberson; directors, Mrs. Owen Coogan, 
Mrs. H. M. Peirson, Mrs. John Devanny, Mrs. B. F. Fuller, 
Mrs. John Haeger, Mrs. Albert Tolman, Mrs. A. N. Allen, Mrs. 
A. D. Francis, Mrs. William Pollock, Mrs. Charles Bailey, Mrs. 
Edward Learned, Mrs. H. G. Davis, Mrs. O. E. Brewster, Mrs. 
Joseph Gregory, Mrs. C. N. Emerson, Mrs. F. F. Read, Mrs. 
L. F. Sperry, and Mrs. C. C. Childs. 

It is needful to observe that, in their undertaking, these 
women had no pattern by which they might be guided; they were 
obliged to break new ground. They had no adequate financial 
endowment. Their income was sufficient to pay merely the rent 
of a small dwelling house. In the press of hard times, they faced 
the task of almost daily begging, and begging through an or- 
ganization planned on unsectarian lines then untried in Pittsfield 
and rare in this country. The practical result at which they 
aimed, that is, a cottage hospital, was not visible on this side of 
the Atlantic. Even the profession of trained nursing was still to 
be imported, for the first training school for nurses in the United 
States was opened in 1874, at Bellevue, while the founders of the 
House of Mercy were holding their bazar. 

They were fortunate, however, in the possession of skilled, 
tactful, and enthusiastic counselors. Dr. J. F. A. Adams, Dr. 
W. E. Vermilye, and Dr. F. K. Paddock were not only able in 
their vocation; they were men also of alert mind and kindly 
soul, quick to perceive the wide benefit to the town which the 
House of Mercy might accomplish, and they freely gave to it 
from the beginning their untiring assistance. The first legal 





JABEZ L. PECK 
1826—1895 



WILLIAM R. PLUNKETT 
1831-1903 





REV. EDWARD H. PURCELL 
1827—1891 



REV. JONATHAN L. JENKINS 
1830—1913 



THE HOUSE OF MERCY 209 

advisers of the directorate were James M. Barker and William R. 
Plunkett, whose interest in the hospital ended only with their 
lives. But it was, after all, the humane spirit of the people at 
large upon which the women of the House of Mercy depended. 
This did not fail them. The record of voluntary gifts made to 
the young hospital is impressive — the contents of the toy savings 
banks, the abatements of the tradesmen's bills, the proceeds of 
concerts, of amateur theatricals, and of baseball games, the daily 
contributions of vegetables and housekeeping supplies. It ap- 
pears that every class of men, women, and children in Pittsfield 
was included among its supporters. 

A cottage, of which the hospital accommodation was eight 
beds, was rented on Francis Avenue, near Linden Street, and 
there the House of Mercy opened its door on January first, 1875. 
In the printed announcement of this progress, the management 
said to the public: "The House of Mercy, representing no sect, 
or clique, no overshadowing influential person or family, but 
that divine spirit of pity for the suffering which dwells in multi- 
tudes of gentle hearts, is thus placed in your midst 

Hereafter, none need to lie down at night, feeling that any poor 
sick person is perishing for lack of needed help; and though we 
incur the title of everlasting beggars, in asking the material aid 
which shall perpetuate the systematic charity now planted in 
this community, we will promise to desist, when sickness and 
suffering and poverty shall cease among the children of men". 
During its first year the little institution cared for twenty-two 
inmates. Miss Martha Goodrich, who had served in military 
hospitals, was its superintendent, housekeeper, and entire nurs- 
ing staff. The medical director was Dr. J. F. A. Adams; the 
surgical director was Dr. F. K. Paddock; Dr. O. S. Roberts, 
Dr. C. D. Mills, and Dr. W. E. Vermilye were attending physi- 
cians. 

In 1876 Mrs. John Todd resigned the presidency, and Mrs. 
Thomas F. Plunkett was elected to that ofiice. A building fund 
was already in process of subscription. In 1877 it was sufficient 
to warrant the purchase of a site and the consideration of archi- 
tects' plans. 104 subscribers, resident in Pittsfield, Lee, Dalton, 
Lenox, Great Barrington, and Stockbridge, contributed to the 



210 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

fund. A triangular lot was purchased at the intersection of 
North, Tyler and First Streets, where the corner stone of the 
new building was hallowed, on September first, 1877, by the 
venerable and merciful hands of Mrs. Curtis T. Fenn. "What 
tender prayers rose heavenward on that golden afternoon, when, 
in the slanting sunshine, the corner stone of the House of Mercy 
was laid!" So spoke Judge Barker, in his address at the inaugu- 
ration of the first city government, fourteen years later. 

The building was ready for occupancy in January, 1878. 
It was a two-storied, wooden structure, with accommodations 
for thirteen patients. The cost of the land and building was 
$10,600, of which more than $500 was contributed in labor and 
material. The subscribed capital was thereby exhausted, and 
the hospital was dependent upon voluntary gifts for its yearly 
support. During the first three years in the new house, the re- 
ceipts from pay patients were about one-seventh of the running 
expenses, despite the fact that many supplies were given. The 
daily compulsion of minute economies, and the absence of any 
precedent of conduct and policy, taxed severely the abilities of 
the pioneer directorates; and from that school of experience was 
graduated a group of women whose devotion to the House of 
Mercy was a valuable and unique social force in Pittsfield. Un- 
deniably, a hospital to be sustained so largely by current gifts 
required from its officers a sort of consecration, which should 
carry them through great labors. 

It was not long before a few bequests became available, and 
soon began the endowment of free beds by organizations, indi- 
viduals, and towns throughout the county. In 1883, Mrs. John 
H. Coffing gave, in memory of her husband, a mortuary chapel. 
The list of annual subscribers was gradually lengthened. Never- 
theless, so urgent was the growing demand upon the hospital 
that the cares of the managers did not decrease, while upon the 
faithful shoulders of the doctors, always giving their services 
without charge, the burden was multiplied. 

The important forward step was taken, in 1884, of the estab- 
lishment of a training school for nurses. This owed its inception 
to Mrs. Solomon N. Russell and Mrs. James H. Hinsdale, and 
during the first year there were four pupils. The energetic di- 



THE HOUSE OF MERCY 211 

rector was Miss Anna G. Clement, who assumed the duties of 
matron of the House of Mercy in 1884, and remained identified 
with the institution until 1913. 

In 1887, Henry W. Bishop, a Berkshire-born resident of Chi- 
cago, expressed a desire to endow in Pittsfield a training school 
for nurses, as a memorial to his son, and proposed that the school, 
although its property was to be legally vested in a separate cor- 
poration, should be placed under the practical control of the House 
of Mercy. This generous offer was gratefully accepted by the 
latter, which made a conveyance of land north of its buildings 
for the site of the new institution; and on August twenty- 
eighth, 1889, was dedicated the Henry W. Bishop 3rd Memorial 
Training School for Nurses. The graceful, brick building, three 
stories in height, not only afforded adequate room for the in- 
struction of nurses, but also nearly doubled the capacity of the 
hospital building, with which a corridor connected it. 

Mr. Bishop's fine gift was effectively employed. The en- 
rolment of pupil nurses increased from fifteen in 1889 to sixty-five 
in 1913, when the supervising committee was forced to decide 
that no larger number could be received. Mrs. Solomon N. 
Russell served annually as chairman of this committee until her 
death in 1908; she was then succeeded by Mrs. Edward T. Slo- 
cum. The number of graduates from 1887 to, and inclusive of, 
1915 was 389. 

Private nursing, outside the hospital, was undertaken by 
senior pupils, beginning in 1886, under an arrangement, soon 
afterward altered, whereby the money paid for their services was 
turned into the treasury of the House of Mercy; but to the com- 
munity at large the prime and direct value of the school has been 
the work performed by the pupils within the hospital walls. 
That the two institutions were coincident in purpose was recog- 
nized in 1893, when the trustees of the school corporation voted 
to assign the property and endowments in their hands to the 
House of Mercy, the consent of the donors and of the latter insti- 
tution having been obtained. Thereafter the school assumed its 
doubly honorable title, "The Henry W. Bishop 3rd Memorial 
Training School for Nurses, belonging to the House of Mercy 
Hospital". The spirit inculcated by the school was manifested 



212 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

when the graduates, of their own initiative, began the charitable 
work of district nursing among the homes of the poor, and them- 
selves maintained it until its support was assumed by the Visiting 
Nurse Association. 

Following the stimulation of Mr, Bishop's gift, the develop- 
ment of the House of Mercy was rapid. In 1891, the officers 
were enabled, through the generosity of William F. Milton, to 
build an isolation pavilion; George H. Laflin erected and equip- 
ped a surgical building in 1893; and in the previous year a build- 
ing for a men's ward and for domestic purposes was added, 
largely by means of a bequest from James Brewer Crane. But 
the demands upon the hospital had also increased; in 1892, for 
example, it cared for patients from twenty-five towns and vil- 
lages outside of Pittsfield; and not long afterward it was occa- 
sionally compelled to decline such applications because of lack of 
room. 

The will of Solomon N. Russell had made the corporation 
owner of a broad tract of unoccupied land on North Street, oppo- 
site its crowded lot, and at the annual meeting of 1900 Mrs. 
James H, Hinsdale and Mrs. Solomon N. Russell announced their 
intention of raising money to construct thereon a new main 
building. Within a few weeks they procured contributions 
amounting to $54,680. Mrs. Hinsdale, Mrs. Russell, and Mrs. 
Slocum were appointed a building committee, and on March 
sixth, 1902, the result of their faithful labors was opened for 
public inspection. It was a brick building of three stories, 200 
feet in length and containing sixty patients' apartments, besides 
many rooms for those purposes required by the most advanced 
scientific hospital management. The architect was H. Neill 
Wilson of Pittsfield. The former hospital buildings were moved 
across North Street and faced with brick, and all were connected 
with the new building. Land on the south, as far as the inter- 
section of North and Wahconah Streets, was anonymously given 
to the House of Mercy, and a substantial iron fence, surrounding 
its entire plot, was paid for by George H. Laflin. The contri- 
butions to the new establishment of the hospital finally amounted 
to nearly $100,000. Much of this was accredited to "unknown 
donors". After the death of Miss Maria L. Warriner, in 1911, 



THE HOUSE OF MERCY 213 

it was disclosed that she had been donor of the most considerable 
single gift to the construction fund, and the central division of 
the main building received the name of "The Warriner Me- 
morial". 

At the close of 1902, the first year of the enlarged hospital, 
twenty-five of its beds were supported by endowment, and sixty- 
seven of the rooms in the three buildings had been furnished by 
individuals, towns, churches, and other organizations. In- 
creased opportunity, of course, multiplied current expenses. A 
regulation provided that "a charge of from $10 to $20 a week will 
be made to those able to pay". The receipts from this source 
were, in 1902, $7,766 from 322 patients, most of whom were able 
only in part to reimburse the hospital for their maintenance and 
care. The outright charity patients numbered 167, while those 
listed as "doubtful" and "by endowment" brought the total to 
more than 500. The running expenses annually exceeded 
$30,000. There was reported to be a weekly gap between ordi- 
nary income and outgo, in 1902, of about $350, and this the 
women of the management, as undaunted as ever, succeeded in 
bridging by constant appeals to the generosity of the people of 
central and southern Berkshire. Said the president's report of 
1904: "In calculating on the latent spirit of Christian benevo- 
lence, that we felt sure would respond to the wants of the sick 
and needy, we were not mistaken. A perpetual procession of 
gifts has been brought to our doors". It would have been fatu- 
ous, however, to expect this procession, had not the public first 
been made to feel confident that its gifts were used with skill and 
economy, and that the original democratic and non-sectarian 
lines, upon which the institution was drawn, were rigorously ob- 
served. 

During its forty years of existence, the most valuable gift 
which the House of Mercy has received has been the daily and 
nightly services of the many charitable doctors of Pittsfield, who 
have constituted the medical and surgical board, and of whose 
careful toil in the hospital gratitude has been the sole compensa- 
tion. Dr. J. F. A. Adams was medical director until 1883; in 
1883, Dr. W. E. Vermilye served the hospital in that capacity; 
in 1884, Dr. Adams resumed the directorship; and since 1885, 



214 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

Dr. Henry Colt has been the chairman of the medical and surgi- 
cal stafiF. There were in 1875 five attendant physicians and 
surgeons on this board; thirteen in 1885; sixteen, including 
oculists, in 1895; in 1915 the professional staff at the hospital 
numbered twenty-four. The first permanent house oflBcer, or 
interne, was added to the medical staff in 1910. 

An out-patient department was initiated in 1882, when Zenas 
M. Crane of Dalton gave a "Berkshire Fund" to the Massachusetts 
Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston, upon the stipula- 
tion that experts from that institution should conduct a free 
clinic, once in three months, at the House of Mercy; an eye and 
ear clinic under its own supervision was instituted at the Pitts- 
field hospital in 1895, Medical and surgical cases treated as 
out-patients were first mentioned in the medical report of 1898, 
when their number was eighty, and in 1915 this department em- 
ployed the services daily of two doctors, and cared for 261 new 
patients. In the same year the number of new patients admitted 
to the out-patient orthopedic, eye, ear, nose, and throat clinics 
was 537. 

As a memorial to Dr. Franklin K. Paddock, who died in 1901, 
his friends presented to the hospital a new operating room; 
and by the John Todd Crane Pathological Fund, given to the 
House of Mercy in 1910 by Mr. and Mrs. Frederick G. Crane of 
Dalton, a pathological laboratory was equipped and endowed. 

To catalogue completely even the more considerable gifts to 
the House of Mercy is hardly consonant with the function of these 
pages; but it is right to emphasize again that the existence and 
the efficiency of the hospital, while a noble monument to the 
charitable labor of Pittsfield women and Pittsfield doctors, are 
also a striking testimonial to the philanthropic spirit of all of the 
people of central Berkshire. Worth noting, too, is the fact that 
manifestations of this spirit in behalf of the House of Mercy were 
necessarily perennial and not sporadic. In the maturity as well 
as in the youth of the hospital, its management was compelled 
to rely largely upon current gifts to meet current expenses. The 
president's report thus stated the case, for example, in 1912: 
"There seems to be a widespread and erroneous impression that 
because the House of Mercy has received many large gifts of 



THE HOUSE OF MERCY 215 

money it is a very rich institution, and consequently can take care 
of itself with no help from the public. . . . The treasurer's 
report shows that the income last year from investments w'as 
$10,367.42 and the earnings of the hospital $35,301.77, while the 
expenses were $62,089.51, leaving $16,420.32 to be contributed 
by its friends". 

The officers' reports for 1915 give impressive evidence of the 
progress achieved in the years since the birth of the House of 
Mercy in 1874. The number of corporate members had risen 
from fourteen to 370. During its first year the hospital cared 
for twenty-two patients; in the year 1915 the number of pa- 
tients received was 2,213. The sum of $6,000, which was the en- 
tire working capital of the institution in 1874, had been increased 
in forty years to an invested fund for all purposes of $345,000. 
The expense of maintenance for the first fiscal year was $1,400; 
it was $80,000 for the twelve months ending in November, 1915. 
The hospital in 1915 contained 150 beds, of which fifty-one were 
endowed. Eighty-five rooms had been furnished by churches, 
organizations, and individuals. 

Miss Martha Goodrich served as matron and superintendent 
until 1880. She was followed by Miss Lucy Creemer, and Miss 
Mary A. Field, each of whom filled the position for two years. 
Miss Anna G. Clement began her quarter-century of service on 
May first, 1884. In 1909 Miss Anna G. Hayes was appointed 
to the position, but illness enforced her resignation in 1910, when 
she was succeeded by Miss Mary M. Marcy. Miss Clement, 
Miss Hayes, and Miss Marcy were the superintendents also of 
the training school for nurses; and in 1910 Miss Clement, to 
whose ardent and intelligent enthusiasm the House of Mercy was 
a heavy debtor, returned to the school for a period of three 
years as instructor. 

The successive presidents of the House of Mercy have been 
Mrs. John Todd, who was elected in 1874, Mrs. Thomas F. 
Plunkett, chosen in 1876, Mrs. James H. Hinsdale, in 1907, 
and Mrs. Charles L. Hibbard, in 1911. Mrs. Washington M. 
Root, Mrs. Charles E. West, Mrs. Frank C. Backus, and Mrs. 
William H. Hall have been the treasurers. 

For scores of other Pittsfield women, in addition to those 



216 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

casually named in this chapter, the service of the House of Mercy 
was almost a life work. The detail of hospital management, the 
collection and conservation of means of hospital support, the 
solution of a hospital's large problems practical, problems theoret- 
ical, and problems diplomatic, were tasks which tested uniquely 
the women of Pittsfield. The value of their service has been 
solidly proved and by the community gratefully acknowledged. 
The quality of their service animated many able women of fol- 
lowing generations with a noble resolution to carry on the unsel- 
fish work courageously. The inspiration of their service was 
clear. Prayer opened the meeting in 1874 at which the House 
of Mercy was initiated; reading of the Scriptures has been a part 
of the procedure at every annual meeting of the corporation 
thereafter. 

A typical worker for the House of Mercy was Mrs, Thomas 
F, Plunkett, who was for thirty years president of the institu- 
tion. Harriette Merrick Hodge was born at Hadley, Massa- 
chusetts, February sixth, 1826; and in 1847 she became the 
second wife of Thomas F. Plunkett of Pittsfield. When the 
project for a local village hospital assumed definite shape, it 
found in Mrs. Plunkett a woman peculiarly adapted to assist in 
its advancement. Not only was she by nature endowed, like 
many of her associates, with a broad conception of Christian 
charity, and with that feminine power of accomplishment which 
in old New England used to be called "faculty", but also she had 
already learned more than the average layman knew in those 
days about hygiene and sanitation. She was enabled to bring 
to the use of the House of Mercy an amount of technical knowl- 
edge infrequently possessed by an elective officer of such cor- 
porations. Neither this knowledge, however, nor her executive 
energy was the chief value of Mrs. Plunkett's service to the hos- 
pital. She had an eager and fertile mind, which expressed itself 
by vivacious speech and facile writing. In any field of general or 
personal appeal, her efficiency was uncommonly productive. 
Few of her countless petitions in behalf of the hospital failed to 
excite attention somewhere or to awaken in someone the desire 
somehow to help; and no aid seems ever to have been so slight 
as to escape her notice. 



THE HOUSE OF MERCY 217 

Her devotion to the House of Mercy sprang from a catholic 
sense of humanity, of which Pittsfield saw other evidence. 
Both the variety and the vigor of her interests were out of the 
ordinary. But it was with men and women whose mission was, 
in any degree, the alleviation and prevention of physical distress 
that Mrs. Plunkett associated herself with a sympathy especially 
profound. She could easily be enlisted in any philanthropic 
crusade, large or small, of which the object was to combat disease 
or needless discomfort, and her researches in the homely science 
of household hygiene were widely published. Doctors, and 
trained nurses, and medical students found her a warm and under- 
standing friend, while the women who worked so loyally with 
her for the House of Mercy were cognizant no less of her affection 
for them and their cause than of her capable leadership. 

Mrs. Plunkett died at Pittsfield, December twenty-sixth, 
1906. 

As Mrs. Plunkett represented the type of Pittsfield woman- 
hood which founded, and upheld, and upholds the House of 
Mercy, so was the type of Pittsfield physicians who charitably 
labored and labor for it represented by Dr. J. F. A. Adams, and 
Dr. Franklin K. Paddock. Dr. Paddock was born December 
nineteenth, 1841, at Hamilton, New York. The vocation of med- 
icine had been followed by his ancestors, and thus with inherited 
ambition and aptitude he was graduated in 1864 from the Berk- 
shire Medical Institute at Pittsfield. Immediately upon gradua- 
tion, he began in Pittsfield the practice of his calling, and there 
continued it without intermission until his death on July twenty- 
sixth, 1901. He was married in 1867 to Miss Anna Todd, daugh- 
ter of Rev. John Todd. 

Dr. Paddock's industry was incessant and unsparing; and 
although its goal seemed to be the performance of a daily duty 
to mankind, rather than the extension of prestige, it achieved 
for his skill, particularly in surgery, a far-spread reputation. 
His notable operative facility was innate and was backed by a 
fearless and imperturbable temperament, and this facility had 
been so cultivated, even in the pressing routine of a large general 
practice, by alert observation and patient independence of 
thought that Dr. Paddock became recognized by his professional 



218 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

fellows in New England and New York as a brilliant and pro- 
gressive surgeon. He was twice, in 1894 and in 1895, the presi- 
dent of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and he appears to 
have had opportunities to establish himself with secure distinc- 
tion in fields where a larger measure of renown and emolument 
might have been obtained than in a Berkshire valley. 

That he did not strive to do so was characteristic of him, and 
of his sort. Behind the modernity of his attainments was his 
ancestral spirit — the spirit of the old-fashioned country doctors, 
close to the hearts, and rejoicing to be close to the hearts, of the 
people among whom they toiled. The lonely hill roads knew 
him well, in darkness, or in sunshine, or with the wind and the 
storm in his teeth; and for nearly forty years his broad and 
important ministry was maintained with undiminished fervor. 
A modest and gentle-hearted man, he was at the same time posi- 
tive, outspoken, intolerant of avoidable uncertainty. In the 
eyes of the community he stood for rugged and brisk directness, 
both of purpose and expression. 

Dr. Paddock's practical humanity and vocational zeal com- 
bined to make him an earnest and powerful coadjutor in the 
work of the House of Mercy. He had much to do, indeed, even 
with the inception of the undertaking, and brought to Pittsfield, 
after a visit to Europe in 1874, a stimulating account of the cot- 
tage hospitals in England. From its beginning, the House of 
Mercy enjoyed the continuous benefit of his intimate connection 
with it, of his professional ability, and of his personal influence 
throughout the county. By means of his large acquaintance 
among distinguished physicians in places remote from Pittsfield, 
he caused the House of Mercy and its training school for nurses 
to be widely and favorably known, and to profit by the advice 
and occasionally the actual services of expert practitioners, 
whose interest might not have been obtained without him. 
Finally, the constant readiness in which he held himself freely to 
do hospital duty, his cheery companionship, his ardor in the task 
of healing, were an inspiration to whose strength the hospital 
nurses and the members of the medical staff often bore uncon- 
scious testimony. 

In the foregoing pages we have seen how closely also the 



THE HOUSE OF MERCY 219 

name of Dr. J. F. A. Adams was identified with the early growth 
of the hospital. Dr. John Forster Alleyne Adams was born at 
Boston, March twentieth, 1844. The outbreak of the Civil War 
interrupted his professional education at Harvard; and the 
young student sought service in the medical department of the 
navy and performed important duty on Farragut's fleet. Re- 
turning to college after the war, he received his degree of Doctor 
of Medicine from Harvard in 1866. He spent a year abroad in 
study at the great hospitals of Vienna and Paris, and thus with an 
equipment of experience somewhat uncommon for a youthful 
physician in those days, he came to Pittsfield in 1867, and soon 
formed with Dr. Franklin K. Paddock a partnership which, al- 
though formally discontinued after fifteen years, remained a 
practical association of purpose and effort until Dr. Paddock's 
death. Dr. Adams exerted a unique intellectual force in Pitts- 
field all his life. His wit, his play of philosophy and humor, il- 
luminated meetings of literary, scientific, or charitable societies; 
and his pleasantries were quoted probably with greater relish than 
those of any other Pittsfield man of his day. His voice was crisp, 
and his eyes possessed a peculiar sort of smiling, kindly brightness 
which the years did not dim. A scholarly reader, both of general 
and professional literature, he had the art of packing the more 
elaborately expressed thoughts of others into brisk, pithy, memor- 
able phrases. He loved books; and he was a faithful trustee and 
president of the Berkshire Athenaeum and Museum. 

The spirit of Christian philanthropy was strong in Dr. 
Adams. He was ever ready to devote the product of his study 
and experience to the good of the community; he labored on the 
town's board of health when such labor was not popular; and 
he strove always, by speech, pen, and act, to show people how to 
protect themselves against disease. He was a scientific investi- 
gator, who knew how to make the result of investigation plain to 
the layman. His services to the House of Mercy were given 
long and unstintedly. After age had called him to rest and re- 
tirement, he undertook, with the zeal of a younger man, to es- 
tablish the anti-tuberculosis sanatorium in Pittsfield, and he was 
for five years president of its sustaining association. In the re- 
ligious, charitable, and parochial activities of his church, St. 



220 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

Stephen's, he was a constant and devout sharer, serving for 
many years as its senior warden. 

Dr. Adams died at Pittsfield, July twenty-seventh, 1914. 
In his death the medical profession of the county suffered, and 
recognized, a singular loss, for he had endeared himself to its 
members, as he had to the citizens of Pittsjfield, by his adherence 
to the ideals of a cultured gentleman, proud of the work given 
him to do in the world and cheerily desirous to do it well. 

Another friend of great value to the House of Mercy in its 
youthful days was Dr. W. E. Vermilye, who came to Pittsfield in 
1871 and ceased to be a resident of the town in 1886. He was a 
native of New York City, where he was born in 1828. Dr. Ver- 
milye was a courtly, kind-hearted, and high-principled man, and 
a helpful officer of St. Stephen's Church. He died at Flushing, 
New York, February second, 1888. 



CHAPTER XV 
CHARITIES AND BENEFACTIONS 

AS the women who inaugurated the House of Mercy were 
American pioneers in providing public hospital relief 
outside the large cities, so the early managers of the 
Union for Home Work, formed in Pittsfield in 1878, were among 
the first practical philanthropists in this country to establish 
successfully a central organization of which the purpose was to 
carry on all the various charitable works of a community. A 
similar association existed in Buffalo in 1877, and an experiment 
of the same sort was on trial in Hartford, Connecticut, at about 
the same time; but in towns of no greater population than Pitts- 
field the centralization of charity was, in 1878, a novel under- 
taking. 

The origin of the Union for Home Work was inspired by Rev. 
Jonathan L. Jenkins. When he founded it, he had been a resi- 
dent of the town for scarcely a year; and he could look at local 
social problems with the clear vision of a newcomer. Charity 
in Pittsfield, both public and private, had been loosely adminis- 
tered. The selectmen, charged with aiding the poor outside the 
almshouse at the expense of the town, had little time, and some 
of them had occasionally little willingness, perhaps, for due inves- 
tigation. The fields of the various charitable societies over- 
lapped at some points, while at others they left intervals of un- 
covered ground. Moreover, because of the comparatively small 
size of the community, they were bound to depend generally upon 
the same supporters; a condition that prohibited that division of 
philanthropic interests which is possible only in large cities and 
which is advantageous alike to those who give and to those in 
need. 

Under a name selected with wisdom in its avoidance of the 
word "charity", the Union for Home Work began its helpful 



222 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

operations in 1878 with a board of management of twenty-five 
men and women, five being chosen by each of five churches. 
The Union was supported by donations, which were stimulated 
by the annual appeal of a public meeting. A superintendent was 
employed; and headquarters were soon occupied in a house on 
Dunham Street, which were in 1883 removed to the Read building 
at the corner of North and Fenn Streets. Originally the chief 
functions of the association were to distribute charitable assist- 
ance, to find work for the indigent, and to advance religious in- 
terests. These were soon broadened. Indeed, a noteworthy 
merit of the institution was flexibility. After a few months, for 
example, the religious function, at first strongly emphasized, 
was discarded; and during the earliest five years of its existence 
the Union conducted, besides a bureau of employment and of 
charity distribution, a sewing school, an evening school, coflfee 
rooms, and a series of mothers* meetings. In the same period, 
the annual number of visits of investigation made by the super- 
intendent increased from 700 to 2,500, and the number of volun- 
teer district visitors from thirty-three to fifty. The selectmen for 
two years consigned to the Union a part of their official work of 
"outside relief", and for the next two years the whole of it, 
work which involved the assistance of about sixty dependent 
families. Then came a rupture and a stormy town meeting; 
and the Union ceased to be the town almoner. 

The Union was incorporated in 1887, and a board of trustees, 
a body separate from the board of managers, was empowered to 
hold its property. The organization had by that time initiated 
and assumed the charge of several additional philanthropies, 
such as a club for working girls, a small and elementary vocational 
school for boys, and the care of poor children sent from the great 
cities to Berkshire for a fortnight's playtime. In 1889 the newly 
established Berkshire County Home for Aged Women became 
allied with the Union for Home Work ; and the latter removed its 
headquarters to the building erected on South Street for the use 
of the two organizations by the sons of Zenas Marshall Crane. 

This alliance proved to be too complicated and was severed 
in 1890. The Union, however, retained its rooms in the South 
Street building until 1895, when it occupied the house on Fenn 



CHARITIES AND BENEFACTIONS 223 

Street numbered 119, which it was enabled to purchase by the 
sale to the Home for Aged Women of its interest in the property 
of the Home. At the same time, a general reorganization was ef- 
fected. Established in its new quarters, the Union conducted a 
sewing school, a cooking school, a day nursery, a fruit and flower 
mission for poor invalids, a boys' club, and the administration of 
a "fresh air fund" for the benefit of New York children; super- 
vised a reading and coffee room on Depot Street; and maintained 
employment and charitable aid departments. The Pittsfield 
Kindergarten Association opened the first free kindergarten in 
the city in the house of the Union on Fenn Street. 

Perhaps the Union in later years attempted to do too much. 
Perhaps the dual organization, with a board of trustees and a 
separate board of managers, was cumbersome. At any rate, it 
is obvious that soon after 1900 the increasing size of the city 
caused philanthropic people to separate more and more into de- 
tached groups, each with a particular interest. The Union for 
Home Work ceased to be active in 1911, having done good service 
for thirty-three years by enlisting the support of hundreds of 
generous men and women, by introducing Pittsfield to many 
valuable agencies of charity, then new to the community, and 
by cultivating a spirit of co-operative kindness. Founded when 
such organizations were rare in this country, the Union was not 
only a benefit but a distinction to the town. 

Upon the long list of presidents of the Union are the names 
of Rev. J. L. Jenkins, Rev. George W. Gile, Rev. W. W. Newton, 
Rev. George Skene, Rev. Orville Coates, Rev. Carl G. Horst, 
Rev. I. Chipman Smart, Walter F. Hawkins, Joseph Tucker, 
Rev. Thomas W. Nickerson, and John M. Stevenson. The 
first superintendent was Theodore Bartlett, and his successors 
were George E. Sprong, Rev. George H. C. Viney, and Mrs. J. A- 
Maxim. 

The Union and its successors in various fields of philanthropy 
supplemented the beneficent activity of many charitable societies 
in the different churches, of which no enumeration or description 
can here be attempted. Nor can our pages venture to relate in 
detail the philanthropic work performed by local branches of 
several organizations having a national scope, like the Ethel 



224 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

Division and the Pittsfield branch of the Red Cross. It is to 
certain charities belonging more distinctively to the city that the 
present chapter purposes to direct attention. 

When the Union for Home Work was organized in 1878, its 
officers suggested several charitable enterprises which might be 
developed, and among these was mentioned the establishment in 
the future of a home for aged women. Ten years later, this 
project was generously made possible. In 1888, a graceful brick 
building, designed for the uses both of the Union and of a home 
for aged women, was erected on South Street by the sons of 
Zenas Marshall Crane of Dalton, in compliance with the wishes 
and to the memory of their father, who died in 1887. 

Early in June, 1889, the building was occupied by the Berk- 
shire County Home for Aged Women and by the Union for Home 
Work. It was then announced that "the Union for Home Work 
is the corporation holding the real estate, and its Board of Mana- 
gers elects the Board of Control of the Home, but has no further 
connection with the management of the institution," In 1890, 
however, this arrangement was altered, because of confusion re- 
sulting from the alliance of a local with a county organization, 
and the Home for Aged Women was separately incorporated. 
The institution originally was not endowed, and did not offer to 
support its beneficiaries entirely without cost to them. The ex- 
penses were paid by annual subscriptions. The first occupants 
of the Home were the matron and the two former inmates of a 
modest establishment of a similar character on Elm Street, which 
had been conducted for two years under the auspices of Rev. 
W. W. Newton and had been named by him "Naomi Home." 

The inmates of the Berkshire County Home for Aged Women 
have numbered about twenty each year. A considerable endow- 
ment fund has been accumulated, and more than three hundred 
men and women compose the sustaining corporation. The first 
president of the Board of Control, Mrs. James B. Crane, was suc- 
ceeded in 1905 by Mrs. Zenas Crane, who is now the president. 
The institution, neither a hospital nor an almshouse, has filled a 
place among the philanthropies of the city which in most com- 
munities is vacant. 

Zenas Marshall Crane, whose wishes were followed by his 



CHARITIES AND BENEFACTIONS 225 

sons when they placed the institution at the disposal of the people 
of the county, was a native and resident of Dalton, where he was 
born January twenty-first, 1815, and where he died, March 
twelfth, 1887; and an account of his honorable life and character 
belongs more properly to the history of that town than to a 
history of Pittsfield. It may be said of him here, however, that 
his many philanthropies were not confined in their operation to a 
single community, and that he was conspicuous throughout 
Berkshire for his support of causes of charity, education, and re- 
ligion. His humanitarianism was at once tender and firm, nor 
did it lack the quality of high courage, for he was an early member 
of the "Free Soil" political party in 1848, when publicly to attack 
slavery required no little boldness. 

It has been mentioned that the house of the Union for Home 
Work on Fenn Street provided a room for the city's first free 
kindergarten. This school was supported and conducted by the 
Pittsfield Kindergarten Association, organized in August, 1895, 
with a membership of about one hundred and fifty. The kin- 
dergarten was opened in the following September. It remained 
for a year on Fenn Street, and then was moved to a room in the 
Solomon Lincoln Russell schoolhouse. In 1898, the room in the 
schoolhouse being no longer available, the city government made 
a small appropriation for renting a room elsewhere on Peck's 
Road for the kindergarten conducted by the association, whose 
work, although on a small scale, was so excellent and so well- 
advertised as to result in the adoption of kindergartens as a part 
of the public school system by the school committee in 1902. 
The association then turned over its equipment to the city and 
was dissolved. The prominent officers had been Mrs. William L. 
Adam, Mrs. George H. Kinnell, and Mrs. Walter F. Hawkins. 
Two teachers were employed, and about $1,000 was raised an- 
nually for running expenses. 

The organization of the Pittsfield Anti-tuberculosis Associa- 
tion in 1908 was due in chief to the benevolent spirit of Dr. J. F. 
A. Adams and to his enthusiastic devotion to the task of healing 
and preventing disease. The by-laws of the association de- 
clared its objects to be "to promote a careful study of conditions 
concerning tuberculosis in Pittsfield; to inform the community 



226 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

as to causes and prevention of tuberculosis; to secure adequate 
provision for the care of tuberculosis patients in their houses, 
and in hospitals and sanatoria; and to own, conduct and main- 
tain such hospitals and sanatoria." Money was contributed 
sufficient for renting a farm of about forty-five acres near Lebanon 
Avenue, on the southwestern outskirts of the city, and for con- 
verting the farmhouse to the uses of a sanatorium, which was 
placed in charge of a matron and nurse. The property was pur- 
chased by the association in 1912; and soon afterward a legacy 
from Dr. F. S. Coolidge of Pittsfield provided for the erection of a 
hospital. The announcement was made in 1915 that the new 
hospital would be called the Frederic Shurtleff Coolidge Me- 
morial House and that it had been endowed by Mrs. Coolidge in 
the sum of $100,000. The association now owns sixty-three acres 
of land, and its two hospitals can care for thirty patients. 

Dr. Coolidge was born in Boston in 1867, was graduated from 
Harvard College in 1887, and, after receiving a medical degree 
from the same institution, began the practice of his profession in 
Chicago. There he was married to Miss Elizabeth Sprague. 
On May fifteenth, 1915, he died in New York. The later years 
of his life were spent in Pittsfield; and, although ill health had 
enforced his retirement from active practice, he gave spirited 
and valuable service to the House of Mercy and effectively co- 
operated with Dr. Adams in launching the Anti-tuberculosis 
Association. 

Dr. J. F. A. Adams was the first president, and he was suc- 
ceeded in 1914 by Dr. Henry Colt. The hospital cares annually 
for about fifty patients; and the current expenses have necessarily 
been met in great part by current donations and by the yearly 
subscriptions of the members of the association, of whom there 
were 813 in 1916. 

One of the many undertakings of the Union for Home Work, 
between 1895 and 1900, had been to provide a daytime home 
for the infant children of working mothers. This was the object 
sought by the organization, in 1905, of the Pittsfield Day Nursery 
Association. The first president was Mrs. William H. Eaton, 
whose successors have been Mrs. A. M. Cowles, Miss Louise 
Weston, Mrs. J. MciV. Vance, and Mrs. Clarence Stephens. A 



CHARITIES AND BENEFACTIONS 227 

house on the north side of Columbus Avenue, near Francis Ave- 
nue, was opened as a day nursery by this association in February, 
1906. A few years afterward, the nursery was removed to the 
house on Fenn Street formerly occupied by the Union for Home 
Work, In 1908 the Pittsfield Day Nursery Association was in- 
corporated. The number of children cared for at the nursery of 
course varies greatly from day to day, the aggregate for the year 
being at present about 5,000, The association is unsupported by 
any endowment fund, and is dependent upon the subscriptions of 
its one hundred members, active and honorary, and upon the pro- 
ceeds of benefit entertainments. 

The provision of public playgrounds, equipped and expertly 
supervised, for the boys and girls of the city was initiated in 1910 
by a few citizens, who obtained from the municipal government 
an appropriation of $300 for this purpose and the privilege of 
trying their experiment on the grounds of the Plunkett School 
during the summer vacation. As a committee in charge, the 
mayor appointed sixteen men who had been nominated by the 
Board of Trade, the Father Mathew Total Abstinence Society, 
the Young Men's Christian Association, and the Boys' Club, 
each organization naming four members. 

In 1911, this committee was incorporated as the Park and 
Playground Association, and the members borrowed sufficient 
money on their personal obligations to purchase the plot of land 
on Columbus Avenue, now called the William Pitt Playground. 
The city government appropriated $500 for maintenance, and 
$1,000 was raised by subscription. With this money the associa- 
tion, in 1911, opened and conducted three playgrounds, one on 
the common, another at Springside, and a third on Columbus 
Avenue. Since that year the development of the system has been 
rapid. The annual municipal appropriation has been increased 
to $3,000, In 1912 and again in 1913, the association bought 
land at Springside, Additional playgrounds were opened near 
Pontoosuc Lake and at the Russell factory village. In 1915 the 
city purchased all the land owned by the association. The out- 
lay for maintenance and direction, however, has been met only 
partly by the annual appropriation from the city treasury, and 
popular subscription has been necessary. 



228 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

Although the chief purpose of the association has been to give 
to Pittsfield children a broad opportunity for healthful, safe 
amusement, large classes at the playgrounds have been attended 
in sewing, basketry, and clay modeling. Instructors of folk 
dancing have found many pupils. The number of trained super- 
visors employed by the association has increased to about thirty. 
In 1915 the total attendance of children at the different play- 
grounds during the summer was approximately 90,000. The 
presidents of the Park and Playground Association have been 
J. Ward Lewis and Charles L. Hibbard. 

The Hillcrest Surgical Hospital was incorporated under the 
laws of the Commonwealth as a public charitable institution on 
July ninth, 1908. The hospital had then been conducted for a 
few months as a private enterprise by Dr. Charles H. Richardson, 
who shared with several Pittsfield doctors and other citizens the 
opinion that the existing public hospital accommodations in the 
county were unable to satisfy the increasing demand for them. 
The number of patients in the hospital when the institution was 
incorporated was twenty-four and the building utilized was at 
the south corner of Springside Avenue and North Street. 

The usefulness of the new hospital to the people of the city, 
and indeed of the county, was demonstrated almost immediately. 
During the first two years of its existence, 1,058 patients were 
cared for; of these, 352 were classified as free, or paying only in 
part for hospital care. The facilities were increased by the addi- 
tion of two buildings, one of which was used as a nurses' home; 
three hospital rooms were endowed; and the donations received 
amounted to nearly $20,000. A post-graduate course of instruc- 
tion in surgery was offered to nurses having diplomas from other 
institutions; and in 1909 a full course training school was or- 
ganized. 

During the hospital's third year, its efiiciency was enlarged 
by changing it from a solely surgical to a general hospital, re- 
ceiving medical as well as operative cases. At the same time the 
word "surgical" was dropped from the corporate name, and the 
post-graduate nurses' course was abandoned, because of the 
growth of the scope of the regular training school. Under the 
broadened policy, the institution continued to show gain both in 



CHARITIES AND BENEFACTIONS 229 

patronage and in the performance of charitable service. The 
executive committee in July, 1915, reported that during the pre- 
ceding twelve months "the cost of the charity work done during 
the year was $4,632.31, or $3,741.81 more than was received in 
donations. Notwithstanding this fact the hospital is able to 
show itself free from debt." The admissions to the hospital in 
that period numbered 698, and there was a well-patronized out- 
patient department. 

The first president of the corporation was Walter F. Hawkins, 
who has since been re-elected annually. The treasurer, serving 
for the same period, has been Dr. Charles H. Richardson. The 
directors were chosen from the county at large; Pittsfield citizens 
upon the earlier boards were Rev. Werner L. Genzmer, William 
A. Burns, Luke J. Minahan, Dr. William L. Tracy, Walter F. 
Hawkins, Ambrose Clogher, John White, Dr. Charles H. Rich- 
ardson, Henry J. Ryan, and Leo Zander. A ladies' auxiliary 
association, of which the purpose was the promotion of the benev- 
olent work of Hillcrest Hospital, was formed in 1911. The presi- 
dent was Mrs. John H. Noble, and the number of members in 
1915 was 125. In the same year, there were 109 honorary mem- 
bers of the hospital corporation, representative of many Berk- 
shire towns. In common with Pittsfield's other charitable enter- 
prises contemporaneous with it, the hospital was steadily con- 
fronted by the problem of supplying a public need with dis- 
proportionate resources, and, like them, it relied more than is 
usual upon the constant efforts of its philanthropic supporters, 
and upon especially watchful management. 

The professional staffs of the hospital were from the first 
under the leadership of Dr. Richardson, whose distinction in the 
practice of surgery was an important resource of the institution, 
and among his associates at Hillcrest of long service were Drs. 
William J. Mercer, Stephen C. Burton, William L. Tracy, A. W. 
Sylvester, John A. Sullivan, and R. A. Woodruff. The super- 
intendents of nurses and of the training school have been Miss 
Marion G. Keffer and Miss J. F. Smith. 

Charitable care of the indigent sick at their homes, which had 
been undertaken for several years by professional nurses in 
Pittsfield, formally enlisted public support in 1908, when the 



230 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

Pittsfield Visiting Nurse Association was organized. The ob- 
jects were declared to be "to provide for the aid of those other- 
wise unable to secure assistance in time of illness, to promote 
cleanliness, and to teach the proper care of the sick," A trained 
nurse was employed, who devoted all her time to the work of the 
association and who soon found assistant nurses to be necessary. 
In 1915 the association, at the request of the school committee, 
assumed the task of instructing pupils of the public schools in 
personal hygiene and of helping their parents by such instruction 
when needed. For the year ending in March, 1916, the number 
of visits made by the nurses of the association was 2,820. 

The Pittsfield Visiting Nurse Association has been supported 
almost entirely by yearly gifts and subscriptions. The presi- 
dents have been DeWitt Bruce, Mrs. Henry R. Russell, Mrs. 
Charles H. Wilson, Mrs. John L. Robbins, and Mrs. Robert D. 
Bard well. 

It has been said that, before the establishment of the Visiting 
Nurse Association, the work of charitable nursing among the 
poor of the city had been carried on for a number of years by the 
professional nurses of Pittsfield of their own initiative and at the 
generous expenditure of their time, skill, and labor. Most of 
them were graduates of the Bishop Memorial Training School. 
The advantage of skilled nursing and its philanthropic as well as 
its practical mission were thus first fully proved to Pittsfield by 
that institution, the founder of which did more than merely pro- 
vide for the technical education of trained nurses. Another 
effect of his gift was to add the provision of free, skilled care of 
the sick at their homes to the list of local charities. 

Henry W. Bishop was born in Lenox, June second, 1829, and 
died at Seabright, New Jersey, September twenty -eighth, 1913. 
He was graduated in 1850 from Amherst College, and in 1856 
began the practice of law in Chicago, where he gained professional 
and civic prominence. For Berkshire, however, he always re- 
tained the warmest affection; and after his marriage to Miss 
Jessie Pomeroy, daughter of Robert Pomeroy, he made Pittsfield 
his summer home. Mr. Bishop was a cultivated, kindly man, of 
rare social graces and strong friendships. The school for nurses 
on North Street was founded by him in memory of Henry W. 



CHARITIES AND BENEFACTIONS 231 

Bishop 3rd, a son by his first marriage, who died while a student 
at Williams College. In an address at the dedication of the 
building in 1889, Mr. Bishop made a touching allusion to the 
impulse which prompted his gift. 

"The last year of my son's life was full of weariness and pain, 
very patiently endured. During his illness, I came to know and 
appreciate the inestimable value of trained scientific nursing. 
He left me just as he was entering into manhood, before he could 
make for himself a name to be remembered. Naturally, I de- 
sired that his memory should be kept green among the Berk- 
shire people, and remembering the comfort and peace which 
sometimes came to him through skillful, tender care, the two 
ideas became associated. If thus a permanent material monu- 
ment shall stand in his memory, and if this memorial structure 
shall send forth streams of healing and comfort to the sick and 
wounded inhabitants of Berkshire forever, then what was his 
loss will be their gain and my sweet consolation." 

Mr. Bishop builded better than he knew, perhaps. The relief 
of suffering was not the only mission accomplished by the insti- 
tution which he founded. Another result of his benefaction was 
that many Pittsfield people were taught the value of trained 
method in philanthropy by observing the charitable work of the 
pupils and graduates of the school for nurses. 

In 1909, it was strongly believed that scientific method 
might with advantage be applied also to the unification, in certain 
respects, of some of the city's charitable institutions; and an or- 
ganization called the Associated Charities was then projected, 
and was formally established in 1911. Arthur N. Cooley was the 
first president, and has since served in that office. In May, 1915, 
the trustees of the Union for Home Work, which had then been 
inactive for four years, voted to unite with and take the name of 
the Associated Charities, and in June this amalgamation was 
legally effected, and the combined organizations were incorpo- 
rated. The Associated Charities, employing trained and profes- 
sional agents, thus succeeded to the functions of the former Union 
for Home Work, in so far as the investigation and assistance of 
poverty and unemployment were concerned, and furthermore 
placed its advice and co-operation at the service of any local 
charity operating in a particular field, and, indeed, at the service 
of any individual benevolently disposed. Accordingly, the in- 



2S2 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

fluence of the Associated Charities was toward that systematic 
centraHzation of philanthropic effort which is today characteristic 
of American social life, and which was evident in Pittsfield as 
early as 1878, when the Union for Home Work was formed. 



CHAPTER XVI 
MILITARY AND PATRIOTIC ORGANIZATIONS 

IN the first volume of Joseph E. A. Smith's "History of Pitts- 
field", the author characterizes Hosea Merrill in these 
words: "Mr. Merrill was in after-life a fine specimen of the 
Revolutionary soldier retired to private life — a calm, even- 
tempered, collected, and thoughtful man; kind and affectionate; 
speaking ill of none; quiet, industrious, and economical; spend- 
ing a long life without reproach, and fearing no man". Those 
phrases might well be used of many volunteer soldiers of the 
Civil War who made their homes in Pittsfield. In 1876 and 
for several years thereafter they were a considerable and an in- 
fluential part of the community. They were then in the prime 
of life; most of them, indeed, were still young. Prominent 
among them were such good citizens as William Francis Bart- 
lett, Henry S. Briggs, Walter Cutting, Joseph Tucker, Michael 
Casey, Henry H. Richardson, John White. A town possessing 
examples of this stamp of the nation's citizen soldiery knew 
the best of it. 

But the community, although thus strongly infused with 
men who had seen military service, was unmilitary. The 
veterans themselves exhibited the characteristic Pittsfield dis- 
like of permanent organization. The first local post of the 
Grand Army of the Republic that was formed had but a brief 
career. Even the regimental reunions were slimly attended. 
There were resident in the town in 1876 about fifty men who 
had worn the uniforms of commissioned officers, but an attempt 
failed to organize them in a formal officers' association. As for 
the Pittsfield company of state militia, it was on the rocks, and 
in 1878 it was wrecked completely. The announcement, made 
in 1876, that "Co. E, 2nd Battalion, 6th Brigade, M. V. M." 
was retained in the service of the Commonwealth, was greeted 



234 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

by a display of fireworks at the Park, a parade, and a serenade 
in honor of John L. Colby. Two years later, however, the Colby 
Guard was disbanded by the governor, and a petition for the 
establishment of a new company was denied. The last captain 
of Company E was J. Brainard Clark. John L. Colby, whose 
name the company bore, was a wealthy owner of iron works at 
Lanesborough. He had a summer home in Pittsfield and was a 
dashing figure in the social life of the town. In 1888 he died 
in New York. 

The first observance in Pittsfield of the ceremonies from which 
was to be developed the impressive and beautiful solemnization 
of Memorial Day appears to have been informally and hastily 
arranged. The custom of annually decorating the graves of 
soldiers began on May thirty-first, 1868. The local newspapers 
recount merely that "a large concourse of people" met at the 
cemetery to lay flowers on the soldiers' graves "under the direc- 
tion of the sexton, Mr. J. W. Fairbanks", and that, at the grave 
of Capt. William W. Rockwell, a brief address was made by Gen. 
Henry S. Briggs. In subsequent years, the town meeting appro- 
priated money yearly to defray the expenses of a suitable cele- 
bration, conducted by a committee appointed by the moderator. 
The original appropriations for this purpose were obtained 
mainly through the stirring advocacy of Morris Schaff and 
Thomas G. Colt. 

The earliest organization in the town of a post of the Grand 
Army of the Republic was in 1869. This was Post No. 98, 
Department of Massachusetts. In 1870 it bore the name 
"Phil Sheridan", and in 1871 was named for William W. Rock- 
well. Capt. Rockwell, a native of Pittsfield and a son of Judge 
Julius Rockwell, died in the service of his country at Baton 
Rouge, Louisiana, in 1863; he was a gallant young officer of the 
Thirty-first Massachusetts regiment, greatly beloved by his 
men. A complete record of the first W. W. Rockwell Post 
seems to be unobtainable. When the post was chartered, July 
eighth, 1869, its commander was Jacob L. Green, and among 
his successors were Henry S. Briggs, Warren T. C. Colt, and 
Henry B. Brewster. On January sixth, 1877, the charter was 
surrendered. At that time there was little interest in the Grand 



MILITARY AND PATRIOTIC ORGANIZATIONS 235 

Army of the Republic discernible in the western part of Massa- 
chusetts. Its total membership in Berkshire County scarcely 
exceeded one hundred, distributed among four posts. 

Prosperity and influence, however, awaited the organization. 
The veterans in Pittsfield re-established a post of the Grand 
Army in 1882, when, on March tenth, was instituted W. W. Rock- 
well Post, No. 125, with twenty charter members. Three 
years later the membership was two hundred. The first com- 
mander was Byron Weston of Dalton, and the scene of the for- 
mation of the post was a hall in the block next north of the 
Berkshire Life Insurance Company's building. In 1883 the 
headquarters were removed to the Renne building on Fenn 
Street and there remained until 1911, when Municipal Hall was 
made available by the city for the uses of the Grand Army and 
kindred organizations. The list of commanders of Rockwell 
Post, No. 125, includes Byron Weston, 1882; Charles M. Whel- 
den, 1883; William H. Chamberlin, 1884; Oliver L. Wood, 
1885; Walter Cutting, 1886; Robert B. Dickie, 1887; L. B. 
Simons, 1888; W. F. Harrington, 1889: C. B. Scudder, 1890; 
John White, 1891; Jesse Prickett, 1892; William F. Harrington, 
1893; John Campbell, 1894; Joseph Tucker, 1895; Francis A. 
Ireland, 1896; N. S. Noyes, 1897; Edward L. Mills, 1898; 
John White, 1899; John M. Lee, 1900; John White, 1901. 
Since 1901, Mr. White has annually served as commander of the 
post. 

The Women's Relief Corps, auxiliary to the W. W. Rockwell 
Post, was chartered in 1884, and was honored in having Mrs. 
William Francis Bartlett for its first president. The devoted 
and kindly work performed by the patriotic women of the corps, 
as well as by those of its sister organization of the other Grand 
Army post in Pittsfield, seems even to have increased in value 
with the passage of time. A camp of Sons of Veterans, which 
was an outgrowth of Rockwell Post, was formed in 1883, but 
its existence was limited to a few years. It bore the name of 
Thomas G. Colt, whose death was the first one entered on the 
records of Rockwell Post, No. 125. 

Thomas Goldthwaite Colt was only nineteen years old 
when, in 1861, he enlisted as a private in the Tenth Massa- 



236 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

chusetts regiment; in 1862 he was on the regimental staff, as 
adjutant, of the Thirty-seventh; and at the end of the war in 
1865 he had won his brevet of Heutenant colonel. He was the 
son of Henry Colt, one of the town's stanch and vigorous "war 
selectmen", and was born in Pittsfield, September thirtieth, 
1842. There he died, May tenth, 1883. Dominant among his 
traits was his cheerfulness in the face of danger or in defeat; 
the veterans of the Thirty-seventh believed that their youthful 
adjutant embodied the buoyant soul of the regiment. After 
the war, he preserved his interest in military affairs and military 
men, for he was a born soldier, whom soldiers followed with 
gay contentment. 

A conspicuous member of Rockwell Post, and a conspicuously 
valuable citizen of Pittsfield, was Henry H. Richardson. He 
was born in Belchertown, Massachusetts, January twenty-fifth, 
1826, and in 1848 began the trade of carpenter in Pittsfield. 
He was a lieutenant of the Allen Guard, with which command 
he went to Maryland in 1861, and of which the seventy -eight 
members supplied later to the war one brigadier general, two 
lieutenant colonels, one major, four captains, and seven lieu- 
tenants. Immediately after its discharge, he obtained a cap- 
taincy in the Twenty-first Massachusetts, and with this famous 
fighting regiment he served without intermission for three 
years. Some of the more important battles in which he did 
duty were those of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, South 
Mountain, the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, and 
Petersburg. At Petersburg he was wounded, and while he was 
in hospital in 1865, he was promoted to be lieutenant colonel. 
He does not seem to have accepted the promotion, but the 
speech of his neighbors always thereafter proudly gave to him 
the title. 

Col. Richardson, after the war, became a builder and con- 
tractor in Pittsfield, where he died, on March thirty-first, 1904. 
Of proverbial integrity, he served the fire district as an efficient 
commissioner of main drains and the city as a member of the 
municipal council. His face was rugged, his figure was solid 
and squarely set, and he was a natural leader of men, being 
masterful, straightforward, and reticent; it was often amusing 



MILITARY AND PATRIOTIC ORGANIZATIONS 237 

to observe with what difhculty he could be induced to speak of 
his fighting days in the Civil War. To few of his time can be 
applied with stricter truth Mr. Smith's characterization of the 
Revolutionary veteran, which begins this chapter — "speaking 
ill of none; quiet, industrious, and economical; spending a long 
life without reproach; and fearing no man." 

Charles M. Whelden was born at Boston, December twenty- 
sixth, 1821, and died at Newton, Massachusetts, January 
twenty-fifth, 1910. He became a resident of Pittsfield in 1851, 
after adventurous experiences in California and South America. 
At the outbreak of the Civil War, he attached himself to the 
leadership of Gen. Benjamin F. Butler; and through the in- 
fluence of that much-debated commander he was commissioned 
a lieutenant colonel in 1862. The actual commission, because 
of the pique, it was said, of a fellow officer, did not come into 
his possession until 1895. Col. Whelden served as a provost 
marshal in Louisiana, Virginia, and North Carolina. He was 
for many years of his long life a druggist in Pittsfield, where his 
sprightly temperament and ability to make many men his 
friends brought him often to the fore in town affairs and in 
those of the Rockwell Post. 

One of the leading charter members of Rockwell Post was 
Israel C. Weller, who was born in Fowlers ville, New York, 
in 1840, and died in Pittsfield, November third, 1900. He 
came to Pittsfield in his boyhood, was a member of the Allen 
Guard in 1861, and afterwards served as a captain in the Forty- 
ninth. He was endowed with an extraordinary genius for 
humorous story-telling, and all his life his popularity was un- 
bounded. Accustomed to deprecate jocosely his own military 
services, he was nevertheless a reliable and steadfast volunteer 
officer. 

William H. Chamberlin, commander of Rockwell Post in 
1884, was a native of Dalton, where he was born May fifteenth, 
1841. He enlisted from Illinois in the Thirty-sixth regiment of 
volunteer infantry of that state, and was wounded and captured 
at the battle of Stone River. In 1878 he became a resident of 
Pittsfield, having in the meantime conducted profitably the 
business of paper manufacturing in New York. His philan- 



238 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

thropy was far-reaching, unostentatious, and practical. The 
aid which he gave to the interests of the Young Men's Christian 
Association was specially noteworthy. A quiet, democratic 
man, he cherished stoutly the patriotic spirit of the war-times 
of his youth; and it is believed that few old soldiers failed to 
find him a cheery and helpful friend. He died in Pittsfield, 
August ninth, 1901. 

In 1889 a number of the members of Rockwell Post with- 
drew from the organization and formed Berkshire Post, No. 197. 
The latter was instituted, with forty-six charter members, on 
April eighteenth, 1889, in a hall in West's block on the corner 
of North Street and Park Square. The first commander was 
Walter Cutting, who served until 1893. In 1893, William E. 
Wilcox was commander of Berkshire Post; in the years 1894 
and 1895, James Kittle; in 1896, James F. Thurston; in 1897, 
Orra P. Wright; in 1898, William F. Hunt; in 1899 and 1900, 
John S. Smith; in 1901 and 1902, Richard Stapleton; in 1903, 
Charles E. Johnson; in 1904 and 1905, Oliver L. Wood; in 
1906, William E. Wilcox. John H. Skinkle, the present com- 
mander, was first installed in 1907, and has since been annually 
re-elected. 

The membership was doubled within a few years of the insti- 
tution of the post, which exhibited a sound activity, wherein 
the early interest of such members as Walter Cutting and of 
William H. Chamberlin was conspicuous. In 1890 the post in- 
spired the forming of the William F. Bartlett Camp, Sons of 
Veterans; and in 1892 the post and the camp began to use the 
same quarters in the England block, on the east side of North 
Street. In 1894 was chartered, as auxiliary to both these as- 
sociations, the Women's Independent Aid Society, which after- 
wards became the Berkshire Women's Relief Corps, No. 129. 
In 1901, the meeting place of the three organizations was re- 
moved to a hall in the "Bay State Block", on Fenn Street, and 
in 1911 their headquarters were established in the Municipal 
Building opposite the post office. 

In the various quarters occupied by the two Pittsfield posts, 
much sympathetic and substantial help has been extended to 
their members, many war stories have been exchanged, and 



MILITARY AND PATRIOTIC ORGANIZATIONS 239 

steadfast patriotism has been fostered, as in places of the same 
kind the country over. The relief funds were maintained by- 
more or less elaborate fairs and entertainments. Public ob- 
servance of Memorial Day has been maintained with faithful 
alertness, in spite of the burden of advancing age. An excerpt 
here from the adjutant's book of Berkshire Post has a quaintly 
touching significance. It bears date May twelfth, 1913, fifty 
years after those who took part in the meeting, which it records, 
had marched in the Civil War. 

"Motion made and seconded that the Post ride to Cemetery 
on Memorial Day — Carried. 

"Motion made and seconded that the vote to ride on Me- 
morial Day be rescinded — Carried." 

And the veterans marched, as stalwartly as might be. 

The distinction of having been continuously an ofiicer in 
Berkshire Post from the date of its institution to that of his 
death was possessed by John Summerville Smith. He was 
born in Paisley, Scotland, in 1842, came as a boy to Pittsfield, 
and there died, April first, 1907. His military service was in 
the Eighth Massachusetts, in 1864. By trade a harness-maker, 
Mr. Smith was a valuable member of the town's fire department, 
and an efficient foreman of the Housatonic Engine Company for 
many years. 

Oliver L. Wood, commander of Berkshire Post in 1904 and 
1905, was born in Becket, Massachusetts, October twenty-first, 
1841, and died in Pittsfield, November eleventh, 1911. He 
went to the front in 1862, as one of the color corporals in the 
Forty-ninth Massachusetts regiment. In 1874 he became a 
resident of Pittsfield, a good type of the reliable and self-reliant 
volunteer soldier in civil life. In 1887 he was appointed a 
deputy sheriff, and in 1901 an officer of the state police. 

Another veteran of the Forty-ninth regiment who was a 
faithful official of Berkshire Post was James Kittle, a native 
of England, where he was born in 1841. In 1855 he came to 
live in Pittsfield, and he died there. May sixteenth, 1915. A 
quiet, trustworthy citizen, he was for nineteen years chairman 
of the local board of registrars, and was a representative of his 
district in the legislature of the state. As the long-time secre- 



240 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

tary of the Forty-ninth Regiment Association, Mr. Kittle was 
one of its mainstays and was held by its members in strong af- 
fection. 

Michael Casey was disinclined by temperament from holding 
office, but every organization of which he was a member was 
certain to find his membership a strong and dependable help. 
One of these organizations was Berkshire Post. Mr. Casey was 
born in Ireland in 1843. He came to Pittsfield when he was a 
boy, and was still almost a boy when he went to the front as 
sergeant in the Thirty-seventh regiment. At the close of the 
war he was a first lieutenant. In 1868 he established himself in 
business at Pittsfield in partnership with James L. Bacon. The 
firm of Casey and Bacon, dealing in grocery supplies, soon be- 
came solely a wholesale house; its career was prosperous and 
honorable; and having been conducted successfully as a part- 
nership for forty-one years, it was dissolved in 1909, and the 
present corporation was formed bearing the same name. Mr. 
Casey died at Pittsfield, November twenty-sixth, 1913. 

He was a self-contained man of few words, but his influence 
was far-reaching. A devout churchman, he was found by suc- 
cessive priests at St. Joseph's to be among the foremost in up- 
holding, without ostentation, the interests of the parish. His 
public spirit was active and progressive. To this was in great 
part due, for an example, the provision of land at Morningside 
for the use of the Stanley Electric Manufacturing Company, 
when upon such provision depended the retention of the shops 
in Pittsfield. Mr, Casey believed in encouraging, and he himself 
often encouraged, the planting of new industries in the city; 
and in his later years he concerned himself largely with develop- 
ing new residential districts. For such enterprises the merited 
trust of the people in his probity and sound judgment well 
adapted him. 

Although Walter Cutting was by birth, breeding, and inter- 
mittent residence, a New Yorker, he touched the life of Pittsfield 
at many points. He was probably more constantly and closely 
connected with the life of the two Grand Army posts than with 
any other local activity. Walter Cutting was born in the city 
of New York, April nineteenth, 1841, and died in Pittsfield, 



MILITARY AND PATRIOTIC ORGANIZATIONS 241 

July twenty-third, 1907. At the outbreak of the Civil War he 
was a junior, in the class of 1862, at Columbia College. He was 
appointed to the stafif of Gen. Christopher C. Augur, and was 
promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel for "gallant and 
meritorious services." To the end of his days he retained some- 
thing of the chivalric dash, in bearing and manner of speech, 
of the beau sabreur of military tradition. 

Col. Cutting was married, in 1869, to Miss Maria Pomeroy, 
daughter of Robert Pomeroy of Pittsfield, and he made Pittsfield 
his home after 1870. His connection with various interests of 
the town soon became influential. He engaged vivaciously in 
local politics and in the volunteer fire department. In the 
affairs of St. Stephen's he was an energetic factor. He was 
a trustee of the Berkshire Athenaeum. A Democrat of en- 
thusiastic allegiance, Col. Cutting was a delegate to several 
national presidential conventions, and received from his party 
in Massachusetts a nomination for the ofljce of lieutenant gov- 
ernor of the Commonwealth. 

In middle life he inherited a comfortable fortune, and at 
Meadow Farm on Holmes Road, where now is Miss Hall's 
school for girls, Col. Cutting conducted for several years a 
stock farm on an extensive scale. This avocation led to his im- 
portance in the boards of direction of the Berkshire Agricultural 
Society. Assistance was given by him generously to many 
associations and individuals; and in his younger days his ex- 
ceptional talent in entertainment was the chief feature of most 
of Pittsfield's amateur performances for the benefit of charity. 
In all of his undertakings, large or small, he was ardent, not 
seldom headstrong, not often complacent with opposition. His 
rare and pleasant social graces were conspicuous, and were his 
by right of aristocracy of Knickerbocker lineage, but the posses- 
sion of them did not set him apart from the everyday life of a 
New England town. To his friends and to the causes which 
attracted him, his loyalty was of the sort which is not to be 
shaken, and in upholding his friends and his causes he was a 
hearty, honest fighter, giving no quarter and seeking none. 

The local organization of sons of veterans of the Civil War, 
already mentioned in connection with Berkshire Post, was 



242 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

chartered on April eleventh, 1890, its official title being Gen. 
W. F. Bartlett Camp, No. 108, Division of Massachusetts, 
There were twenty-five charter members, and the first command- 
er was Harry D. Sisson. His successors were Edwin B. Tyler, 
Eugene M. Wilson, Orlando S. Fish, Milton B. Warner, David 
J. Giralich, Charles W. Noble, Burdick A. Stewart, Leroy P. 
Ogden, Donaldson M. Peck, Charles E. Carey, Edward J, 
Combs, Harry F. Sears, J. Ward Lewis, Walter W. Sisson, and 
Linus W. Harger. The camp filled with credit its place among 
the patriotic organizations of the city. Its importance in the 
state was recognized in 1896, when one of its leaders, Harry D. 
Sisson, was elected division commander of the Division of 
Massachusetts. Among the members of the camp in 1915 were 
a son and a grandson of the heroic general whose name it bears. 

The period of Pittsfield's history which is the subject of this 
volume is that of the declining age of the men who fought in the 
war between the states. It is right to say that the city's atti- 
tude toward them and their spirit has been one of properly 
maintained respect and honor. The two Grand Army posts, 
gradually decreasing in membership, have been held by the 
community in increasing regard. The loyal work in their behalf 
of the faithful and public-spirited women of the two Relief 
Corps has been generally and gratefully recognized; and the 
preservation of their traditions by the Sons of Veterans has 
been rightly esteemed by thinking citizens. The patriotic ap- 
preciation survived, which prompted the older town to erect the 
Soldiers' Monument in 1872. 

Organization in Pittsfield of a chapter of the national society 
of Daughters of the American Revolution was effected in 1896, 
and its first meeting was held in the following year, on February 
thirteenth. The founder and first regent was Mrs. James 
Brewer Crane of Dalton, and the name selected was Peace 
Party Chapter, D. A. R., the title being commemorative of the 
festal gathering, long famous in village anecdote, whereby Pitts- 
field celebrated the end of the war in 1783, on the grounds of 
the "Chandler Williams place", on East Street. 

The women of the local chapter have pursued with animated 
diligence the lines of patriotic and charitable activity prescribed 



MILITARY AND PATRIOTIC ORGANIZATIONS 243 

by the national society. Their contributions to the Red Cross 
and to the aid for the soldiers of the Spanish War in 1898 were 
substantial. They have fostered patriotism in the public 
schools by the presentation of flags and the offering of prizes 
for essays on patriotic subjects. In 1915, the graves of more 
Revolutionary soldiers were visibly honored by Peace Party 
Chapter than by any other chapter of the society in Massa- 
chusetts. The chapter presented to Pittsfield a stone sun-dial, 
marking the spot where grew the historic Old Elm in the Park, 
which was dedicated June twenty-fourth, 1903; and it has en- 
couraged the provision of historical memorials in neighboring 
towns. The Pittsfield women who have served as regents have 
been Mrs. William A. Whittlesey, Mrs. John M. Stevenson, 
Mrs. Frank Peirson, and Mrs. H. Neill Wilson. For a number 
of years after 1896, Peace Party Chapter had the unique privilege 
of carrying on its membership list the names of two venerable 
ladies whose fathers saw service in the Revolution. 

The Berkshire County Chapter of the Massachusetts Society 
of the Sons of the American Revolution was organized in Pitts- 
field in 1897; and the charter, for which the application received 
thirty-one signatures, was granted on June seventh of that year. 
The first president was Wellington Smith of Lee. Those of his 
successors whose homes were in Pittsfield were Henry W. Taft, 
James W. Hull, John M. Stevenson, Allen H. Bagg, Edward T. 
Slocum, Joseph E. Peirson, and William L. Root. 

Efforts of the chapter have resulted in the placing of two 
important memorial tablets, and in the arrangement of appro- 
priate dedications of them. On August twentieth, 1908, was 
unveiled in Lanesborough the bowlder and tablet in honor of 
Jonathan Smith, the Berkshire farmer whose speech in the con- 
stitutional convention at Boston in 1788 had so much to do with 
the acceptance by Massachusetts of the constitution of the 
United States. The movement to provide the memorial was 
originated by the Berkshire County Chapter, S. A. R., and the 
dedicatory exercises were dignified by the participation of the 
acting governor of the Commonwealth, Eben S. Draper. A 
stone marker with a bronze inscription was placed by the chapter 
in 1911 on South Street in Pittsfield on the site of Easton's Tav- 



244 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

ern, where was planned the expedition which captured Fort 
Ticonderoga in 1775. The marker was dedicated on July third, 
1911; and the exercises were an impressive part of the celebra- 
tion of the 150th anniversary of the incorporation of the town 
of Pittsfield. 

Pittsfield men who had served in the war of 1898 against 
Spain formed, shortly after the close of the war, a branch of the 
national organization known as the Regular and Volunteer 
Army and Navy Union. The local society was named in mem- 
ory of Franklin W. Manning. It was disbanded in 1914 to be 
succeeded by the Richard Dowling Camp, No. 35, United Spanish 
War Veterans. The camp, bearing the name of a Dalton boy 
who was killed in action in Cuba, has continued creditably to 
fulfill its patriotic purpose, joining the Grand Army posts and the 
Sons of Veterans in public celebrations in honor of the country's 
flag. Commanders of Dowling Camp have been John B. Mickle, 
Frank D. Fisher, Frank Kie, and Robert H. Knight. 

The city's company of state militia, mustered into the service 
of the Commonwealth as Co. F, Second Infantry, M. V. M., 
on June sixth, 1901, was maintained with steadily increasing 
efficiency, and did not, in this respect, fall behind other imits 
of the military forces of the state. Its headquarters were in the 
Casino and in the Academy of Music, until its armory on Sum- 
mer Street was occupied in December, 1908. John Nicholson, 
the first captain of Co. F, was retired with the rank of major in 
1912, and Ambrose Clogher, now captain, was then selected 
for the command. The lieutenants have been Robert K. Willard, 
Wellington K. Henry, Ambrose Clogher, Walter E. Warren, 
Harry F. Sears, Harry Adamson, and Charles H. Ingram. 

While these pages were in preparation, Co. F was on duty 
along the Mexican border, summoned to the service of the nation 
in June, 1916. The company left Pittsfield, on its way to the 
mobilization camp of Massachusetts troops, on June twenty- 
first. This was the first departure, since the days of 1861, of a 
body of local soldiers on a journey which might lead them to 
actual war. It was witnessed with pride and with high confi- 
dence that, whatever the event, the men would sustain the best 
traditions of the citizen soldiery of Pittsfield. 



CHAPTER XVII 
INDUSTRIAL AND FINANCIAL 

IN respect of the number of people employed, the manufactory 
of stationery of the Eaton, Crane and Pike Company has 
been the most important establishment developed in Pitts- 
field during the last forty years, except the local works of the 
General Electric Company. The offspring of the Hurlbut Sta- 
tionery Company, a concern which began operations in Pittsfield 
in 1893 with less than forty people under employment in factory 
and office, the Eaton, Crane, and Pike Company in 1915 em- 
ployed about 1,000 people. 

In 1893, Arthur W. Eaton, then president of the Hurlbut 
Paper Manufacturing Company of South Lee, organized the 
Hurlbut Stationery Company, in association with William A. 
Pike of the firm of Hard and Pike, which conducted a modest 
manufactory of stationery in the city of New York. Pittsfield, 
rather than South Lee, was finally selected as the headquarters 
of the enterprise; and the plant of Hard and Pike was removed 
from New York to the factory on South Church Street, which 
had been erected in 1883 for the Terry Clock Company, and 
had for a year been disused. The purchase of this building by 
Mr. Eaton personally in 1893 probably caused the new industry 
to be established in Pittsfield. There, in August, 1893, the 
Hurlbut Stationery Company began its course. 

Its infancy was beset not only by nation-wide business de- 
pression, but also by lack of trained operatives, by the necessity 
of converting to its uses a shop not intended for them, and by 
powerful competitors. About 1896, however, the young Pitts- 
field concern gave many signs of healthful growth. The con- 
trolling owner was the Hurlbut Paper Manufacturing Company, 
of South Lee; but the entire property of that corporation was 
bought by the American Writing Paper Company in 1899, and 



246 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

there was danger that this syndicate would remove the locally 
valuable industry from the city. The danger was averted by the 
organization, through the efforts of Arthur W. Eaton, of the 
Eaton-IIurlbut Paper Company, to which the American Writing 
Paper Company sold the South Church Street plant in 1899. 

The remarkable development of the enterprise thereafter 
was a salient feature in the industrial aspect of Pittsfield. The 
erection of three substantial additions in 1901 nearly doubled 
the employment capacity, increasing it to one of about 450 
hands, and this was enlarged repeatedly in the years immediately 
following. The Eaton-Hurlbut Paper Company soon absorbed 
the Berkshire Typewriter Paper Company and also the business 
of Sisson and Robinson, a firm which occupied part of its factory 
and manufactured its boxes. In 1908 the company announced 
that arrangements had been effected with the proprietors of the 
Crane paper mills in Dalton, whereby it was to utilize for its 
stationery the famous writing paper manufactured by the Messrs. 
Crane, and to market a product thus made completely in Berk- 
shire. This alliance caused a reorganization of the Pittsfield 
corporation; and the corporate name, in March, 1908, was 
changed to the Eaton, Crane, and Pike Company. 

The president of the reorganized company was Arthur W. 
Eaton, who had served as president of the Eaton-Hurlbut Com- 
pany during its entire existence. The present officers of the 
Eaton, Crane, and Pike Company are Arthur W. Eaton, presi- 
dent; William A. Pike and Charles C. Davis, vice-presidents; 
and William H. Eaton, secretary and treasurer. 

After 1908, added facilities were obtained, by enlargements 
of the South ("hurch Street shops and by the acquiring of two 
auxiliary plants nearby, of which one was a veteran mill formerly 
of L. Pomeroy's Sons. The factories of the company, with an 
employment capacity of more than 1,000 people, were made cap- 
able of producing stationery daily to the amount of 60,000 quires 
of paper and 1,500,000 envelopes. In providing for the safety 
and well-being of its working force, the company has been a pro- 
gressive leader among the industrial establishments of New 
England; and a loyal spirit of co-operation, both in its offices 
and in its shops, has been not the least effective factor in its 



INDUSTRIAL AND FINANCIAL 247 

success. The company's market includes not only the United 
States and Canada, but also South America, Cuba, Mexico, and 
the Philippine and Hawaiian Islands. 

Even wider in geographical extent has been the market de- 
veloped by the E. D. Jones and Sons Company, whose ma- 
chinery is used in many of the industrial centers of Asia, Europe, 
and North and South America. The plant of this company on 
McKay Street is a lineal descendant of the small machine shop 
established there by Gordon McKay about 1844. In 1872 this 
was operated by the firm of William ('lark and Coni[)any, of 
which Edward D. Jones was a member. A new foundry on 
Clapp Avenue was built in 1874, when the chief product was 
beating and washing engines, dusting machines, and mill ele- 
vators. In 1890 the property was acquired by the partnership 
of E. D. Jones and Sons Company, which was incorporated in 
1893. In the next year, a new machine shop and an addition to 
the foundry were erected; in 1903, the boiler works of H. S. 
Russell were purchased, refitted, and made a part of the machine 
shop; and in 1906 and 1907, the main foundry was entirely re- 
built. Storage facilities were arranged on land at the corner of 
Newell and East Streets, and a spur railroad track across East 
Street connected this storeyard with the main line of the Boston 
and Albany Railroad, which was connected also with the ma- 
chine shops by a spur track across Depot Street. 

In 1915 the concern employed about IGO people. Its prin- 
cipal business was the planning and equipment of paper mills, 
and to its former output had been added rotary pumi)s, defibering 
machines, pulpers, and paper-washing, cooking, and refining 
engines. Edward D. Jones, who laid the foundations of the 
great prosperity of the company and was its first president, died 
in 1904, and was succeeded in the presidency by his son, Edward 
A. Jones. 

An unpretentious little brewery, with a daily output of less 
than six barrels, was conducted on a site near the present corner 
of South John Street and Columbus Avenue by Michael Benson 
in 1868, when it was purchased by two energetic young Ger- 
mans, Jacob Gimlich and John White. In 1880 the partners were 
able to build a brick cold storage vault, and in 1886 a new malt- 



248 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

house, with a capacity of 30,000 bushels. In 1890 they began 
the erection of a large brewhouse, now the center of an establish- 
ment with a yearly capacity output of about 75,000 barrels, em- 
ploying about sixty hands, and shipping its product to Vermont, 
Connecticut, New York, and North and South Carolina, besides 
Western Massachusetts. The growth of few other contempora- 
neous Pittsfield industries has been so rapid and so sound, for 
improvements of manufacturing methods, especially in the 
bottling department, have been introduced unsparingly. The 
brewery is the only one within a radius of fifty miles. 

The partnership of Gimlich and White was incorporated in 
1892, under the name of the Berkshire Brewing Association. 
The first president was Jacob Gimlich, who held the ofiice until 
his death in 1912 and was then succeeded by John White. The 
present officers are John White, president, David J. Gimlich, 
vice-president, John A. White, secretary, and George H. White, 
treasurer. 

Between 1880 and 1890, the manufacture of shoes was of a 
local importance second only to that of textile manufacturing. 
The shoe factory of Robbins and Kellogg on Fourth Street gave 
employment to about 450 hands in 1884, and the outlay for 
wages was larger than that of any other factory in the town. 
This firm began business in 1870, and was succeeded by the O. W. 
Robbins Shoe Company, incorporated in 1892. Shortly after 
1900 the company was discontinued. Farrell and May began 
the manufacture of shoes in 1888, in the building of the Kellogg 
Steam Power Company. The Cheshire Shoe Company in 1889 
was induced by the public-spirited investment of local capital to 
establish a shop in Pittsfield. The shop was purchased in 1902 
by the Zimmerman Shoe Company and in 1905 by the Eaton- 
Hurlbut Paper Company. The Mills Shoe Company and the 
Holman-Page Shoe Company were in operation in the city be« 
tween 1900 and 1910; but shoe manufacturing has since lost 
the prominent place which it once occupied among the industries 
of the city. 

Tack manufacturing was carried on from 1875 to 1889 by 
the Pittsfield Tack Company, at first in the building of the Kel- 
logg Steam Power Company and after 1883 in that of the Terry 



INDUSTRIAL AND FINANCIAL 249 

Clock Company on South Church Street. This tack manufac- 
tory was discontinued in September, 1889, and was succeeded 
by that of the Berkshire Tack Company, of which Walter Cut- 
ting was president and which had its shop in the Kellogg Steam 
Power building and afterward on Pearl Street. Operations were 
finally suspended in 1901. 

Another of the many tenants of the Kellogg Steam Power 
building was the Saunders Silk Company. This corporation 
failed in 1876. Two years later, S. K. Smith, who had been the 
foreman for the Saunders Company, formed a partnership with 
William B. and Arthur H. Rice, and the new firm in 1878 began 
the manufacture of silk thread in a small shop on the corner of 
Robbins Avenue and Linden Street, where thirty people were 
employed. In 1880, silk braid, then of rare manufacture in the 
United States, was added to the output. 

The Messrs. Rice in 1884 acquired the interest of their part- 
ner, organized the new firm of A. H. Rice and Company, and 
continued the business in the original quarters until 1886, when 
they moved the manufactory to a building at the corner of 
Burbank and Spring Streets, formerly used as a woolen mill by 
Farnham and Lathers. In the meantime, A. H. Rice and Com- 
pany had commenced the manufacture of mohair braid; and in 
1893 they purchased the mohair braid plant of the Barnes Man- 
ufacturing Company of Paterson, New Jersey, and installed the 
equipment of this plant in Pittsfield in 1894. The complicated 
machinery had been made in Germany and required specially 
trained operatives. 

The subsequent growth of the business of A. H. Rice and 
Company was so considerable as to compel the enlargement of 
the Burbank Street factory in 1896 by the erection of new build- 
ings. At present about 250 people are normally employed. 
The product includes silk threads of all kinds, and braids of silk 
and mohair. Elaborate machines for making fancy, as dis- 
tinguished from binding, braids were first added to the plant in 
1900, and equipment of this sort has been so developed that the 
factory has few counterparts in the country. 

The firm was incorporated in July, 1905, under the name of 
the A. H. Rice Company, and Arthur H. Rice has continued to 
be the president since the formation of the corporation. 



250 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

Limitations of space and plan prohibit the description here 
of many non-textile manufactories which assisted in promoting 
local prosperity. The most ambitious of them was the manu- 
factory of motor trucks, conducted by Alden Sampson in 1905 
in a well-constructed building on the site of the satinet mill of L. 
Pomeroy's Sons. In 1910 the plant was sold, and in 1911 the 
fine equipment was removed to Detroit. The Berkshire Auto- 
mobile Company, in 1904, and the Stilson Motor Car Company, 
in 1907, also began the manufacture of motor vehicles, which is 
no longer carried on in the city. 

Among minor industries, that of longest standing has been 
the tannery of Owen Coogan and Sons, purchased by Mr. Coogan 
in 1849 and occupying a site, near the Elm Street bridge, where 
a tannery had been in operation as early as 1798. Of far more 
recent birth are the Berkshire Manufacturing Company, making 
men's garments and succeeding the Berkshire Overall Company, 
incorporated in 1881; the Jacobson and Brandow Company, 
manufacturing automobile parts and developed in 1908; and 
the Tel-Electric Piano Player Company, manufacturing a me- 
chanical piano player devised by a Pittsfield inventor, John F. 
Kelly. Some of the enterprises discontinued have been those of 
the Sprague-Brimmer Company, which began in 1880 to employ 
about one hundred hands in the manufacture of shirts; the 
W. C. Stevenson Manufacturing Company, organized in 1884 
to make weaving shuttles and reeds; and the Triumph Voting 
Machine Company, which began operation in 1904 and of which 
the plant was removed ten years later to Jamestown, New 
York. 

Three names — Stearns, Pomeroy, and Barker — that had 
been prominent in the history of Pittsfield textile manufacturing 
for nearly half a century ceased to be connected with it soon 
after 1876. In 1881 was announced the failure of the D. and H. 
Stearns Company. This concern then owned only one woolen 
mill in the southwestern part of the town, where formerly it 
had conducted five factories. Creditors carried on this mill for a 
few years thereafter, but in 1889 the mechanical equipment was 
sold to the firm of Petherbridge and Purnell, who then operated 
the factory at Bel Air. 



INDUSTRIAL AND FINANCIAL 251 

Theodore Pomeroy, who died in 1881, left his mill property 
on the west branch of the Housatonic to be managed by trustees 
until his younger son should come of age. The trustees fell into 
dissension, and the mills into adversity. After 1893, the Pom- 
eroy Woolen Company had some measure of success with the 
factories, but the enterprise was short-lived; and the plant was 
rented in 1898 and afterwards purchased by Helliwell and 
Company, manufacturers of broadcloth. Having been dis- 
mantled in 1912, it finally passed into the possession of the 
Eaton, Crane, and Pike Company. The "old satinet mill" of 
L. Pomeroy's Sons was razed in 1904. 

The long-maintained prosperity of the woolen mills of J. 
Barker and Brothers at Barkerville began to languish at the 
time of the fire which consumed one of the factories in 1879. 
In 1885 the owners of the property were incorporated as the 
J. Barker and Brothers Manufacturing Company, and the pro- 
duct of the plant was cotton and woolen warp, and dress goods. 
Efforts to revive the industry did not succeed, and they were 
discontinued by the company about 1890. Soon afterward, 
the mills, which had once caused Barkerville to be a busy factory 
village, became idle, were dismantled, and, with a single excep- 
tion, disappeared. 

Of the three brothers, after whom the village was named, 
Charles T. Barker was born in Cheshire in 1809 and died at 
Pittsfield in April, 1884; and Otis R. Barker was born in Moriah, 
New York, in 1811 and died at Pittsfield, October eighteenth, 
1904. The senior partner, John V. Barker, was born in Cheshire, 
March fourteenth, 1807, and died at Pittsfield, January sixth, 
1896. 

John Vandenburgh Barker was a conspicuous power in busi- 
ness and public life. He began his career as a Pittsfield manu- 
facturer in 1832, when, with his brother, he bought the woolen 
mill built in 1811 by Daniel Stearns in the southwestern part of 
the town. In 1865 the brothers Barker purchased most of the 
mill property of D. and H. Stearns, and in 1870 they built a new 
factory. John V. Barker was identified with the beginnings of 
the Pittsfield Bank and of the Berkshire Life Insurance Company. 
His integrity was flawless and his judgment was deliberate and 



252 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

sound. In 1849, 1862, and 1867 he represented the town in the 
General Court, where he instituted valuable reforms in railroad 
legislation. The final years of his life were shadowed by business 
reverses, but warmed by the gratitude and respect of those able 
to remember how much his success and industry had contributed 
to the welfare of the town. 

The cotton factory, erected in 1832 a short distance south 
of the Elm Street bridge and near the site of the first mill dam 
built in the town, was owned in 1876 by Martin Van Sickler. 
He died in 1891, having long outlived his once prosperous enter- 
prise. Since 1884 the veteran building has been occasionally 
occupied by miscellaneous industrial concerns. 

On Wahconah Street, the woolen mill of the Bel Air Manu- 
facturing Company, which failed in 1884, was operated after 
that year by James O. Purnell and W. T. Petherbridge, under 
the company's trustee. The output was fancy cassimeres. In 
1890 the factory was shut down, Messrs. Purnell and Pether- 
bridge having commenced the business of making yarn on 
Brown Street, under the name of the Pittsfield Manufacturing 
Company, incorporated in 1887. The Bel Air mill stood idle 
until it was rented and, in 1904, purchased by James and E. H. 
Wilson, who used it as auxiliary to their factory next north of 
it on the stream. 

The two factories of Jabez L. Peck on Onota Brook, the 
upper mill producing flannel and the lower producing cotton 
warp, continued in successful operation after 1876 under Mr. 
Peck's direction and after 1890 under that of the J. L. and T. D. 
Peck Manufacturing Company. Jabez L. Peck died in 1895, 
and his son, Thomas D. Peck, succeeded him in the presidency of 
the company. Ralph D. Gillett of Westfield became president 
and treasurer in 1909. Meanwhile, the output of both mills 
had included cotton warps, cassimeres, and thread. In 1910 
the company ceased to be active, and the factories were closed. 

The Berkshire Woolen and Worsted Company was organized 
in 1910, and took possession of the upper mill on Onota Brook, 
formerly the property of the J. L. and T. D. Peck Manufacturing 
Company. In 1911 this plant was enlarged, improved, and 
equipped with new buildings and machinery by the Berkshire 



INDUSTRIAL AND FINANCIAL 253 

Woolen and Worsted Company at an expenditure of about 
$150,000. The product was fancy cassimeres, and during the 
early period of the great European war army cloths for use 
abroad were profitably manufactured. The number of hands 
employed was approximately 450 in 1915. The enterprise 
possessed the aggressive vigor of youth, and was a material 
accession to the city's industries. 

The first president of the Berkshire Woolen and Worsted 
Company was Ralph D. Gillett of Westfield. He was succeeded, 
after his death on October fourteenth, 1913, by Edgar L. Gillett. 
A few years ago, the corporate name was altered to the Berkshire 
Woolen Company. The present general manager, James R, 
Savery, has served the company in that capacity since its in- 
corporation. 

Passing now from the youngest to the oldest of Pittsfield's 
textile mills, we find that in 1876 the principal product of the 
factory of the historic Pontoosuc Woolen Manufacturing Com- 
pany was blankets, with which for several years the company 
supplied the Pullman sleeping cars. But the policy of the Pon- 
toosuc company, since its factory first went into operation in 
1827, has been to change its output in order to take advantage 
of varying markets. The product at present is woolen cloth 
for men's and women's garments. Improvements in the plant 
since 1876 have included a new main weave shed, a new card 
and spinning room, a new boiler house, and almost a complete 
re-equipment of rriachinery. The persons under employment 
now number about 450. Military cloths for foreign armies have 
recently been produced at the mill in large quantities. A main- 
stay of Pittsfield industrial life uninterruptedly for nearly 
ninety years, the Pontoosuc Woolen Manufacturing Company 
was in 1876 under the presidency of Ensign H. Kellogg, chosen 
to that office in 1861. Mr. Kellogg was succeeded in 1882 by 
Thaddeus Clapp, in 1891 by William R. Plunkett, in 1903 by 
David Campbell, and in 1911 by Henry A. Francis, who is now 
the president. 

Thaddeus Clapp, who served the company either as general 
agent, superintendent, or president for twenty-five years, was 
born in Pittsfield in 1827 and died there, November fifth, 1890. 



254 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

His father, Col. Thaddeus Clapp, had been factory manager at 
Pontoosue from 1827 to 1860. Mr. Clapp was a bustling, cos- 
mopolitan man, who traveled extensively on business missions, 
and whose observant mind was the means of conveying to 
Pittsfield many progressive notions about other than industrial 
matters and of thus broadening the social horizon of the town. 

Another important officer of the company during the same 
period was J. Dwight Francis, who purchased an interest in the 
concern in 1864 and acted as assistant superintendent or super- 
intendent from that year until his death, on September ninth, 
1886. Mr. Francis was born in Pittsfield in 1837. His an- 
cestors were some of the vigorous settlers of the "West Part" 
of the town; and he was an energetic, industrious citizen, es- 
pecially popular among the people employed at Pontoosue. 

The woolen mill erected near Onota Brook in 1863 by the 
firm of S. N. and C. Russell was conducted in 1876 by a firm 
bearing the same name, of which the managing partners were 
Solomon N. Russell and his brother Zeno. The latter died in 
1881. In 1886 the S. N. and C. Russell Manufacturing Company 
was organized, Solomon N. Russell being the first president. A 
new weave shed had been built in 1880; and at this period the 
product was chiefly union cassimeres. The company built a 
new boiler house in 1893, an addition to the finishing and spin- 
ning rooms in 1900 and one to the weave shed in 1910, and a 
new shipping room in 1915. The plant, constantly and pro- 
gressively improved, now employs about 250 hands, and the 
output is piece-dye woolens, kerseys, broadcloths, and thibets. 
The continuity of successful operation maintained at this manu- 
factory has been remarkable, and it has been also distinguished 
by continuity of employment and control. Among those on 
the pay roll in 1916 were eleven men whose years of continuous 
service in the mill collectively numbered 296. Solomon N. 
Russell was followed in the presidency by his brother, Franklin 
W. Russell, in 1899; and Henry R. Russell, now the president, 
succeeded Franklin W. Russell in 1908. 

Solomon Nash Russell, to whom the company owed its 
sound establishment, was born in Conway, Massachusetts, in 
1822, and came to Pittsfield with his father, Solomon Lincoln 



INDUSTRIAL AND FINANCIAL ^55 

Russell, in 1827. In 1845, with his brother Charles as a partner, 
he converted a little tool shop on Onota Brook into a manufac- 
tory of cotton batting, and there began a business career which 
culminated in the success of the S. N. and C. Russell Manufac- 
turing Company. On February sixteenth, 1899, he died at 
Pittsfield. 

Mr. Russell accepted many opportunities of adding to the 
general prosperity of the town. In partnership with E. D. 
Jones, he greatly improved North Street by the erection of 
Central Block, and he stimulated local industry by providing a 
shop for the once-important Terry Clock Company. He was a 
sagacious and respected member of the board of selectmen. 
Benevolent and liberal-minded, he promoted generously the 
foundation of Pilgrim Memorial Church, and he was a powerful 
supporter of the House of Mercy, which by his will came into 
ownership of the spacious tract of land where stands its present 
hospital on North Street. 

Although undemonstrative and a user of few words, he was 
warm in friendship, and of this fact his mill hands were no less 
conscious than were the leading citizens of Pittsfield. For half 
a century, most of the people of the factory village which bears 
his name depended upon him not only for employment but also 
for private counsel. This he gave willingly, but not lightly, 
for he reached his decisions, as he had attained his success, with 
patience and caution. Like his father, he had a broad notion 
of the duties of citizenship, and he was content neither to shirk 
them, nor to condone the shirking of them by others. 

After the suspension of operations at the woolen mill of the 
Taconic Manufacturing Company in 1873, its factory, which 
had been built in 1856 on the site of Lemuel Pomeroy's musket 
shop, remained idle until 1880. It was then leased and operated 
by James Wilson of Pittsfield and Michael Glennon of Dalton, 
who manufactured union cassimeres and employed about 125 
hands. In 1886 Mr. Glennon was succeeded in the partnership 
by Arthur Horton of New York. The firm of Wilson and Hor- 
ton discontinued business at the mill in 1898. The partnership 
of James and E. H. Wilson put the factory again in operation in 
1900; and it has since been steadily busy. The number of 



256 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

persons now employed is 600. The output is woolen and woolen- 
and-worsted cloth for garments, the annual production being 
approximately 1,000,000 yards. From October, 1914, to De- 
cember, 1915, the concern manufactured about 125,000 military 
blankets and 750,000 yards of uniform cloth for some of the 
European armies. In 1904 the plant was greatly enlarged by the 
construction of a spacious addition to the Taconic mill and by the 
purchase of the Bel Air factory, a short distance south of it. 
The Bel Air building was then repaired and refitted by the 
Messrs. Wilson, and utilized as an auxiliary plant. 

The former Osceola woolen mill in southwestern Pittsfield, 
making union cassimeres, was operated in 1876 by the firm of 
Tillotson and Collins. Of this firm, Dwight M. Collins was 
the junior member; while the controlling interest, bequeathed 
to his brothers by Otis L. Tillotson, was represented by William 
E. Tillotson. Mr. Collins soon afterward retired from the 
partnership, wherein he was succeeded, in 1882, by John T. 
Power, who died in 1890. Mr. Tillotson conducted the mill as 
an independent concern until 1901, when it became a part of 
the property of the W. E. Tillotson Manufacturing Company, 
organized in that year. Its product, in 1915, was fancy worsteds 
for men's wear. As an auxiliary to this factory, Mr. Tillotson 
in 1889 built and began to operate a mill for the manufacture 
of worsted goods on Fourth Street, near Silver Lake, which has 
since been several times enlarged. 

In 1882 Dwight M. Collins established a small knitting 
shop in Central Block on North Street. William E. Tillotson 
and John T. Power each had an interest in the concern, which 
was later incorporated under the name of D. M. Collins and 
Company. The product was knitted underwear. The enter- 
prise thrived, and in 1890 the plant was removed to buildings 
erected for it near Silver Lake. There the rapid expansion of 
the business of D. M. Collins and Company caused additions 
to the knitting shops and the employment of several hundred 
hands. 

In 1901 the W. E. Tillotson Manufacturing Company was 
incorporated, which consolidated the manufacturing interests of 
Mr. Tillotson and of D. M. Collins and Company. The result 







o 



INDIISTIMAI. AND rMNAN< lAL 257 

of \ho aiTial^^MMKil lull vvns iiiciTn,s<'(| iM-livil_y, in holli IIm> wcMAiii/.; 
and llic kiiilliii|4 hrniiclM'.s of \.\\v InisiiM'.s.s, wliicli ^miam' JMiipIoy- 
mciil lo approximately HOO persons in l!)IA. 'V\\o Silv<'r Ijiko 
|)laiil liad \)cvu so developed llial il was the larj^esl l<>xlile 
miiniifaelory in I lie <'ily; and, ol" I lie two main shops, one wan 
ifH), and llw oilier, willi a lieif^iil of lliree stories, was '^OO fe«>t 
in lenj^lli. liOiiis llolliiif^wortii, now the president and |^<MM'ral 
niaiiaf^er of the coinpaiiy, sne<'<M'de<l in thos*' olllees William K. 
Tillotson, who died in WHW. 

Mr. 'rill«>tson strengthened and expanded the indnstrial 
prosperity of the city more elfeetnally tlinn did any olher in- 
dividual textile maiMifactnrer dnrini; lli<' (piart<'r-<-«'nt iiry follow- 
ing IHDO. Il«> was horn iti (Jrariville, Massarhusel ts, NovemixT 
sixteenth, 1H4'£; and he first cjime to I'ittsdi'ld, a poor hoy, 
about \Hry'i. lie was in ("lii<-a^fo, «'nfj;n|,'e<| in the luisiness of a 
stove dealer, from 18(57 to 1H7;i. In the latter yi'jir he returned 
to l*itts(i<*l<l to take <-har>^fe of the Tillotson interest in th<* Oseeola 
mill. His su<'<'<'ss with that fiietory and with the shops which 
\\v. (;stal)lish<'d near Silver Lake has been h<'n'in nnrral<'<l. Thai 
suceesH was |)<M'uliiirly f^;ralifyirijjj to loeal pri<le and in a s^mihc 
renssuriuf^ at a. linn* when the ahsorlx'iit i^rowlh of I Ik- Slaidry 
lOleetrie lV1a,nufaeturin^ (!(Mnpaiiy and the liki^lihood of the 
removal of its shops from l*iUs(i<'l<l cnusrd apprehensive eitiKeriH 
to helieve that it, was importani lo div<'rsiry locjil indsulrics. 

William 10. Tillotson was both shrewd and hold, at once an 
assiduous work<"r and a, conraKeous investor, and he ainasst'd a 
larjfe fortune. Taciturn and rescrv<'<l. In* was (piick and positive 
in de(;isi()n and action, nor were his dcciMions and actions <le- 
teriniued by anybody i'lse. Men i)ften ionnd behind his brisk, 
sharp <lemeiinor the IknuI, of a tolcnini and helpful fri<'nd, 
stanch in foul jis in r;i,ir w«'allM'r; and his inlimaie.s wcr<> avvan; 
of a jj;enial, <piainl humor which warnic«l his iiincliiiM' like faculty 
of accotn|)lislim<'nl . Mis <|calh occmn'd al rillslield, Novem- 
ber thirtieth, 15)0(1. Il<- was unmarried and he di<<j inlcHlate; 
his iM'irs gave abundant |)ni,eti(ral exprCHHion to the c«»uimunily 
of his charitable and puliiic-Mpirilcd impids<'S. 

Dwight M. (lollins, long-lime a busiiu'ss associate of Mr. 
Tillotson, was born at Springfield, Ma.ssa(;liUHottH, in IHM.'i and 



258 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

died at Pittsfield, January twenty-ninth, 1912. He joined the 
ranks of local manufacturers in 1865. He was a quiet, reflective 
man of high principles, who made a careful study of his business, 
but did not allow it to engross him. From 1901 until 1907 he 
was vice-president of the W. E. Tillotson Manufacturing Com- 
pany. 

In 1882 the superintendent of the knitting shop of D. M. 
Collins and Company was John H. Musgrove, and in 1895 Mr. 
Musgrove began to operate a similar establishment in the Noble 
block on West Street, employing fifteen hands. In 1905 the 
Musgrove Knitting Company, of which the presidents since its 
organization have been Joseph H. Wood and Michael Casey, 
moved this plant to the former Kellogg Steam Power building on 
Curtis Street. There the knitting company, manufacturing 
cotton underwear, now employs about 165 people and has an 
annual product of approximately 100,000 dozen. 

In 1876 the annual output at the works of the Pittsfield Coal 
Gas Company on Water Street was 387,000 feet of gas, supplied 
to consumers through 418 meters. In 1915 the number of 
meters was 9,145, and the year's product of gas at the company's 
works on lower East Street was 209,142,000 feet. Most of this 
large increase was gained after 1900, and was due to the growing 
use of gas for fuel. Land was purchased by the company on 
lower East Street in 1901, and the new works first supplied gas 
in January, 1902. The chief officers of the company in 1876 
were Robert W. Adam, president, and William R. Plunkett, 
treasurer. Upon the death of Mr. Plunkett in 1903, H. A. 
Dunbar, the present treasurer, assumed ofiice. William L. 
Adam, now the president, succeeded Robert W. Adam in 1911. 
The present manager is H. C. Crafts, under whose direction the 
recent notable expansion of the business of the company has 
been effected. 

The first concern in the town to supply light by means of 
electricity was the Pittsfield Electric Light Company, incor- 
porated in 1883 under the laws of the state of Maine. The 
officers were Alexander Kennedy, president, and Charles E. 
Merrill, treasurer and general manager. In 1885 the company 
relinquished its Maine charter and was reincorporated in Massa- 



INDUSTRIAL AND FINANCIAL 259 

chusetts. The Brush arc lamp was then the only electric light- 
ing device in local use, and the company supplied current from a 
central station in Merrill's woodworking shop on North Street. 
Another electric lighting concern, called the Pittsfield Illuminat- 
ing Company, was organized in 1887, under the presidency of 
William Stanley of Great Barrington. This company had its 
power plant in the shop of Robbins and Gamwell on West 
Street and introduced the Edison incandescent lamp. The 
companies soon became allied, and in 1890 they were formally 
united in the Pittsfield Electric Company, which was incorporated 
in that year and purchased all the stock of the two pioneer com- 
panies. Alexander Kennedy, at present serving as president 
of the Pittsfield Electric Company, has continuously held that 
office since the incorporation of the concern. William A. Whittle- 
sey was treasurer and general manager until his death in 1906. 
Mr. Kennedy then became treasurer, and the duties of general 
manager were assumed by Mr. Whittlesey's son, William A. 
Whittlesey, 2nd, who now performs them. 

The central station in 1890 was in the building erected for 
the purpose by Mr. Whittlesey, at the corner of Eagle Street 
and Renne Avenue, and this building is still so utilized. An 
auxiliary power station near Silver Lake was built by the com- 
pany in 1906, and was enlarged two years later. The original 
power capacity of the company's plant in 1890 was 500 horse- 
power, and this had been increased in 1915 to an aggregate 
horse-power of 3,800, in the main and auxiliary stations. In 
other respects, too, the company has improved its equipment, 
keeping pace with that remarkable development of electrical 
apparatus in the United States which has been appreciated by 
few communities so thoroughly as by the community of Pittsfield. 

The growth of local prosperity since 1876 is well-indicated 
by a comparison of the aggregate deposits in the local banks. 
The town had two national banks in 1876 — the Agricultural and 
the Pittsfield. The amount on deposit in these banks was 
$623,677.10, on January first, 1876. The Third National Bank 
was chartered in 1881, and the Berkshire Loan and Trust Com- 
pany in 1895; and on January first, 1915, the aggregate de- 
posits in those two institutions and in the Agricultural and the 



260 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

Pittsfield National Banks were $5,012,568.02. The town's only 
savings bank in 1876 was the Berkshire County, which, on 
January first of that year, had deposits of $1,920,083 and 5,620 
depositors. The City Savings Bank having been chartered in 
1893, the aggregate deposits in Pittsfield's two savings banks 
were $10,720,133 on January first, 1915, and the total number 
of depositors was 29,582. 

Chartered as a state bank in 1818, the Agricultural National 
Bank in 1876 was under the presidency of Ensign H. Kellogg, 
who served until his death in 1882. He was then succeeded by 
John R. Warriner. Mr. Warriner was a native of Pittsfield, 
where he was born in 1827. Having been employed by banks 
in Springfield and Holyoke, he became cashier of the Agricultural 
Bank in 1853, and remained with that institution until he died, 
on June nineteenth, 1889. He was a painstaking, sagacious 
man, implicitly trusted and greatly respected, and his services 
for thirty-five years as cashier and president of the bank were of 
sound value not only to the institution but to the entire com- 
munity. Mr. Warriner's brother, James L. Warriner, was presi- 
dent of the Agricultural National Bank from 1889 to 1898, and 
W. Murray Crane of Dalton from 1898 to 1904. Irving D. 
Ferrey, now the president, succeeded Mr. Crane in 1904, having 
been uninterruptedly in the bank's service since 1862. John R. 
Warriner was followed as cashier by Mr. Ferrey in 1882; and 
Frank W. Dutton, the present cashier, was chosen to the office in 
1904. 

In 1876, the banking rooms of the Agricultural were those 
now occupied by the Third National, on the ground floor of the 
building of the Berkshire Life Insurance Company, north of the 
main entrance. The erection of the handsome white marble 
structure on the east side of North Street, between Fenn and 
Dunham Streets, which is at present occupied in part by the 
Agricultural, was begun by the bank in June, 1908, and finished 
in October, 1909. The architects were Messrs. Mowbray and 
Uffinger of New York; and the result of their labors and of those 
of the bank's building committee w^as a notable contribution to 
the beauty of the business center of the city. The cost of the 
building was $250,000. 



INDUSTRIAL AND FINANCIAL 261 

For forty-seven years the Pittsfield National Bank has oc- 
cupied the same banking rooms, which have, however, been re- 
modeled and greatly enlarged. In 1876, the president was Julius 
Rockwell of Lenox, who had been elected in 1858 and who served 
until his death in 1888. Born in Colebrook, Connecticut, in 
1805, he became a resident of Pittsfield in 1830, and in 1865 
removed his home to Lenox. There he died, May nineteenth, 
1888, and in the history of that town, as well as in Smith's 
"History of Pittsfield", may be found the honorable record of 
the high distinction which he achieved as a citizen, a lawyer, a 
legislator at Boston and Washington, and a magistrate of the 
Superior Court of Massachusetts. 

Judge Rockwell's successor in the presidency of the Pittsfield 
National Bank was Zenas Crane of Dalton, who held the office 
until 1892 and who was followed by Andrew J. Waterman. 
James Wilson became president of the bank in 1897, William W. 
Gamwell in 1899, and George H. Tucker, now the president, be- 
gan to serve in 1907. Edward S. Francis, the cashier in 1876, 
was succeeded in 1893 by Henry A. Brewster. In 1902 George 
H. Tucker was chosen to the office; and the present cashier, 
Edson Bonney, was elected in 1907. 

Incorporated in 1881, the Third National Bank had Henry 
W. Taft for its first president. Ralph B. Bardwell, now the 
president, succeeded Mr. Taft in 1904. Upon the original 
board of directors were Solomon N. Russell, Byron Weston, 
John T. Power, Edward D. Jones, J. D wight Francis, Charles W. 
Kellogg, and William H. Hall. The first cashier was Ralph B. 
Bardwell, who was followed in 1905 by the present cashier, 
William H. Perkins. The Third National occupied rooms in the 
southwestern part of the first story of the Berkshire Life building 
until 1910. The bank was then removed to its present rooms 
on North Street in the same building, on the north side of the 
ground floor. 

The Berkshire Loan and Trust Company was incorporated 
in 1895, and began business in the quarters which it occupies at 
present, in the north part of the ground story of the building of 
the Berkshire County Savings Bank. The original directors 
were Franklin K. Paddock, DeWitt Bruce, Charles Atwater, 



262 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

A. A. Mills, W. H. Sloan, Henry Colt, Jacob Gimlich, C. C. 
Gamwell, P. H. Dolan, George W. Bailey, George K. Baird, 
Charles E. Hibbard, Benjamin M. England, T. N. Enright, and 
Charles W. Kellogg. The first president was Franklin K. Pad- 
dock. Charles W. Kellogg succeeded to the presidency in 1898, 
and was followed in 1907 by Charles E. Hibbard, who is now in 
office. Charles W. Kellogg was the first treasurer, and Charles 
W. Seager, the present treasurer, followed Mr. Kellogg in 1898. 

In 1876, the banking rooms of the Berkshire County Savings 
Bank were on the north side of the second floor of the building 
of the Berkshire Life Insurance Company. The bank in 1894 
began the erection of its building on the corner of Park Square 
and North Street, and occupied the south part of the ground 
story of the new building in the following year. The architect 
was Francis R. Allen of Boston. 

Julius Rockwell, president of the Berkshire County Savings 
Bank in 1876, had been elected to that office in 1863, and was 
followed in 1888 by John R. Warriner. Mr. Warriner's successor 
was Joseph Tucker, who was chosen president in 1889; and 
Arthur H. Rice, now at the head of the institution, followed 
Judge Tucker in 1908. Incorporated in 1846, the bank had for a 
period of sixty -five years only two treasurers. Robert W. Adam, 
elected treasurer in 1865, succeeded the first treasurer, James 
Warriner; and Mr. x\.dam retained the position until his death 
in 1911. He was followed in the treasurership by his son, 
William L. Adam, who is at present in office. 

The City Savings Bank was chartered in 1893, when the 
officers were Francis W. Rockwell, president; Hiram B. Welling- 
ton, treasurer; and A. J. Waterman, A. W. Eaton, O. W. Rob- 
bins, W. M. Mercer, John S. Wolfe, A. A. Mills, Jacob Gimlich, 
W. F. Gale, Henry R. Peirson, Richard A. Burget, and Benjamin 
M. England, trustees. On June first, 1893, the bank began 
business in part of a store in a block at North and Summer 
Streets, where the banking rooms originally occupied a floor space 
of eight by twenty-five feet, and in 1899 the institution moved 
its quarters to the corner of North Street and Eagle Square. 
In 1906 the City Savings Bank bought the block at the north 
corner of North and Fenn Streets, and two years later remodeled 



INDUSTRIAL AND FINANCIAL 263 

that building, wherein its present banking rooms on the ground 
floor were occupied by the institution in February, 1908. Francis 
W. Rockwell has continued to serve as president of the bank 
since incorporation. In 1913 Hiram B. Wellington was suc- 
ceeded as treasurer by H. Calvin Ford, who is now in office. 

Besides the savings banks, encouragers of thrift have been 
the two co-operative banks, the Pittsfield, incorporated in 
1889, and the Union, in 1911, both of which are now successfully 
conducted in their respective offices on North Street. 

Established in Pittsfield in 1835, the Berkshire Mutual Fire 
Insurance Company in 1876 had headquarters in West's block, 
at the corner of Park Square and North Street, which it occupied 
until the demolition of the building in 1894. From 1895 until 
1909, the company occupied offices in the building erected on 
the site of West's block by the Berkshire County Savings Bank; 
and when the Agricultural Bank building was ready for occu- 
pancy, the fire insurance company moved to its present quarters 
therein. The president in 1876 was John C. West, who was 
succeeded in 1879 by Jabez L. Peck, in 1895 by Frank W. Hins- 
dale, and in 1906 by Henry R. Peirson, the present president. 
Albert B. Root was secretary and treasurer of the company in 
1876. John M. Stevenson followed Mr. Root in 1879 and served 
until 1912, when Robert A. Barbour, who is now the secretary 
and treasurer, assumed that office. During this period, the 
growth of the business of the Berkshire Mutual Fire Insurance 
Company was highly creditable to the management, for on 
September first, 1875, the number of policies was 4,150 and the 
amount at risk was $5,332,863, while on January first, 1915, 
the number of policies was 16,724 and the amount at risk, 
$20,396,527. 

The officer of longest service in the history of the veteran 
company was John M. Stevenson, who was born in Cambridge, 
New York, August thirty-first, 1846, and died at Asheville, 
North Carolina, March twentieth, 1916. He became a citizen 
of Pittsfield in 1872. Mr, Stevenson was a neighborly, indus- 
trious, public-spirited man, who served the community faithfully 
in many ways. His efforts promoted the establishment of the 
first street railway in Pittsfield; he was a good friend and a 



264 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

useful citizen; and he preserved to the last an unusually youthful 
cheeriness in social intercourse. 

On January first, 1876, the Berkshire Life Insurance Com- 
pany, now the most important and widely known financial in- 
stitution in Pittsfield, had 4,813 policies outstanding for an ag- 
gregate insurance of $10,940,216. The company's outstanding 
policies on January first, 1915, numbered 31,449, and represented 
an insurance of $76,513,988. Thomas F. Plunkett, the second 
president of the company, died in 1875, and was succeeded in 
1876 by Edward Boltwood. Mr, Boltwood, who was born in 
Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1839, became a resident of Pittsfield 
in 1870, and died in 1878, at Cairo, Egypt. He was followed in 
the presidency of the Berkshire Life Insurance Company by Wil- 
liam R. Plunkett in 1878, by James W. Hull in 1903, and by 
William D. Wyman in 1911. The vice-presidents since 1876 
have been James M. Barker, Walter F. Hawkins, William D. 
Wyman, and James W. Hull; the treasurers, Edward Boltwood, 
James W. Hull, William D. Wyman, and Joseph F. Titus; and 
the secretaries, James W. Hull, Theodore L. Allen, and Robert 
H. Davenport. The present officers are William D. Wyman, 
president, Walter F. Hawkins, vice-president, Joseph F. Titus, 
treasurer, and Robert H. Davenport, secretary. Since the 
completion of its building, in 1868, the company has maintained 
its home office on the second floor. The building was remodeled 
and enlarged in 1911. 

The field covered by the agencies of the Berkshire Life In- 
surance Company includes most of the northern states of the 
Union; and its prosperity, conservatively achieved, has been of 
substantial assistance to the general prosperity of the city. 
Several similar institutions in the United States are organized 
upon a far larger scale, of course; but among them this Pittsfield 
company, founded and managed in its youth by men of a country 
town, stands well toward the front, in respect of excellence of 
reputation for reliable efficiency and watchful management. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
ELECTRICAL MANUFACTURING 

THE claim of Pittsfield to the title of pioneer in woolen 
manufacture in the United States was more familiar in 
the last century than now. The claim rests upon the ap- 
parent priority in this country of Arthur Scholfield's little shop 
for the making of carding machines, near the West Street bridge 
over the Housatonic, where he set up his first carding machine in 
1801, and a few years later began the manufacture also of looms. 
Mr. Scholfield's machinery was widely used, and at least contrib- 
uted essentially to the establishment in America of the business 
of making woolen cloth. 

Pittsfield's claim to national priority in the manufacture of 
machinery for the transmission of electrical energy by high 
voltage over long distances is far more securely based. The 
first polyphase, alternating current generator installed in the 
United States for power transmission was made in Pittsfield. 
This machine was presented, as a relic, to the Museum of Natural 
History and Art in 1914. Few historical exhibits therein are of 
more significance to the city. None are of more interest to 
American manufacturers; for from this generator may be said 
to have descended the power plants of the continent, sending 
their gigantic energy hundreds of miles to accomplish hundreds 
of results. The development of the woolen industry through 
Scholfield's machinery was of signal importance; but of im- 
portance even more momentous was the later development of 
many sorts of industries through the machinery designed and 
made in Pittsfield by the Stanley Electric Manufacturing Com- 
pany. 

In 1887 William Stanley, Jr. was a resident of Great Bar- 
rington, where he had placed in operation, on a very modest 
scale and with fewer than twenty customers, a lighting plant 



266 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

which utilized the system of the alternating current in transmis- 
sion. It will be remembered that prior to 1887 the continuous 
current seemed to absorb the attention of American electrical en- 
gineers. Some, however, concerning themselves with the prob- 
lem of the economical distribution of current over larger areas, 
perceived the importance of cutting down the plant cost involved 
in the use of the continuous current, which then necessitated 
heavy copper cables. Among these engineers, and as a practical 
inventor foremost among them, was Mr. Stanley. A working 
theory of the alternating current was clear in his mind as early as 
1883. Failing then to convince George Westinghouse, with 
whom he was at the time associated, of its utility, he soon after- 
ward withdrew from his connection with Mr. Westinghouse, and 
in 1885 and 1886 constructed and operated, in Great Barrington, 
the first alternating current machinery to be seen in this country, 
which was capable of transmitting current for light and power 
over an extended field. The size of the wires was one twenty- 
fifth of that required under the continuous current system then in 
use. 

Near Mr. Stanley's home, the town of Pittsfield offered a 
somewhat broader opportunity for testing and developing his 
devices, and accordingly he became officially attached, as we have 
seen, to the Pittsfield Illuminating Company in 1887. When 
this corporation was consolidated with its older rival, forming 
the present Pittsfield Electric Company, it was announced that 
an upper floor of the new building, erected for the company by 
W. A. Whittlesey on Cottage Row, now Eagle Street, had been 
leased to Mr. Stanley for a laboratory and workshop. 

The news was greeted by Pittsfield's business men with com- 
posure. The vague notion appears to have prevailed that Mr. 
Stanley's activities would be merely a part of those of the lighting 
company, and also that he might have something or other to do 
with the equipment with electric power of the street railway. 
Even after the announcement that Mr. Stanley had moved his 
home and working headquarters to Pittsfield, and had gathered 
there around him a group of progressive young electrical engi- 
neers, the conservative town did not indulge itself in undignified 
prevision. A few men, however, were able apparently to foresee. 



ELECTRICAL MANUFACTURING 267 

if dimly, the importance of this new Pittsfield enterprise. One 
of these men was William W. Gamwell. A certain interview 
which Mr. Stanley had with Mr, Gamwell in the summer of 1890 
is said to have been the germ of the Stanley Electric Manufactur- 
ing Company. There were in the country only two establish- 
ments where alternate current machines were made, although 
about 1,500 stations were operating the system, and the number 
of them was rapidly increasing. To Mr. Gamwell, Mr. Stanley 
advanced the idea that here was a commercial opening worth trial. 
His plan was to supply these stations with transformers, devices 
to raise or lower the voltage of electrical currents. The manufac- 
ture of generators, or of other station appliances, did not enter 
into the original scheme. 

Mr. Gamwell's interest was excited, as well as that of others, 
among whom was William A. Whittlesey. Meetings preliminary 
to the organization of a company were held in the office of William 
R. Plunkett, another valuable supporter of the undertaking. 
Local investors were coy, and naturally so, for in a Berkshire 
town of those days electrical machinery was generally held to be 
an almost fantastic sort of thing. At length, on December 
twenty-sixth, 1890, incorporation of the Stanley Electric Manu- 
facturing Company was effected, the legal papers having been 
drawn by Mr. Plunkett. The capital stock was $25,000. The 
officers were Charles Atwater, president and treasurer; George 
H. Tucker, clerk; the foregoing, with William Stanley, Jr., 
Charles E. Hibbard, William W. Gamwell, and Henry C. Clark, 
directors. A somewhat odd coincidence suggests itself. The 
first corporation formed in Pittsfield for the purpose of textile 
manufacturing, afterward the town's chief industrial reliance, 
was organized at Captain Merrick's tavern in 1809. In a build- 
ing on precisely the same site, eighty-one years later, was or- 
ganized a corporation whose success was to be the backbone of 
the city's industrial welfare. 

Charles Atwater, the first president of the corporation, was 
born in 1853, and was for many years connected with the manu- 
facturing business of L. Pomeroy's Sons. An affable and ex- 
tremely popular man, of many friends, he died in London, May 
first, 1898. 



268 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

As early as November, 1890, the designing and modeling of 
transformers and generators had been begun in the laboratory 
on Cottage Row by the engineers associated with Mr. Stanley. 
Prominent among them was Cummings C. Chesney, who then 
became a citizen of Pittsfield. In 1892, after the laboratory 
force had been joined by John F. Kelly, the Stanley Laboratory 
Company was incorporated, with a capital stock of $10,000. 
The function of the laboratory company was that of a consulting 
engineer for the manufacturing company, and the early en- 
deavors of the former were chiefly directed toward the perfection 
of an alternating current motor for use in the transmission of 
power over long distances. Miles of wire were strung in the se- 
clusion of "Colt's lot", near the present intersection of Colt Road 
and Wendell Avenue, and there experiments were conducted. 
Eventually was perfected what is now known as the inductor 
type of generator. The sale of this machine, which was the 
joint invention of Messrs. Stanley, Kelly, and Chesney, was 
destined to be the most important single factor in the Stanley 
Electric Manufacturing Company's prosperity. 

In January, 1891, the Stanley Electric Manufacturing Com- 
pany began operation, and in the following April the first trans- 
former was shipped. The factory was in a building on Clapp 
Avenue, where sixteen hands were employed. The works' engi- 
neer was Cummings C. Chesney, the shop superintendent was 
John H. Kelman, and the sales manager was Henry Hine, who 
had learned the business with the Westinghouse enterprises. 
Extraordinary success crowned the young undertaking im- 
mediately. In 1891 the company built the first 100-light trans- 
formers used in America; its little factory was the first in the 
country to build transformers of 10,000 volts and higher. The 
4000 K W transformer made in 1893 by the Stanley Electric 
Manufacturing Company, for an establishment in Pittsburg, was 
at that time the largest machine of the kind in the world. Thus 
in the manufacture of transformers, the company was a leader. 

To the manufacture of transformers was soon added that of 
switchboards, motors, and generators. In 1893 the company's 
shop built the first American polyphase alternating current 
generator for long distance transmission of energy at high volt- 



ELECTRICAL MANUFACTURING 269 

age. This was installed in December, 1893, at a power plant, 
called the "Old Furnace" plant, near the Monument Mills at 
Housatonic, Massachusetts, and generated electrical energy for 
transmission to the Monument Mills and to Great Barrington, 
to be used for light and power. The historic generator remained 
in daily operation until 1912, and in 1914 it was presented by the 
General Electric Company to the Museum of Natural History 
and Art in Pittsfield. Thus in the designing and construction 
of high tension apparatus for the transmission of power, the 
local company again was a vigorous pioneer, and it successfully 
equipped great plants of power transmission in California, in 
Canada, and the South. By such equipment, made in Pittsfield 
by a Pittsfield concern, the entire field of American industry was 
permanently and impressively broadened. 

The business speedily outgrew the original quarters of the 
company. In 1893 the company established itself in the new 
brick factory which William A. Whittlesey built for it on Renne 
Avenue. About 300 hands were there employed, and a constant 
growth was maintained in the company's product, now compris- 
ing transformers, generators, rotary converters, switchboard ap- 
paratus, motor generator sets, and other station appliances, and 
marketed under the trade name of the "S.K.C. System", so 
designated because its devisers were Messrs. Stanley, Kelly, and 
Chesney. The Stanley Laboratory Company, in which these en- 
gineers were the principal stockholders, was absorbed by the 
Stanley Electric Manufacturing Company in 1895. 

Financially, the company in its youthful days had an ad- 
vantage over many older competitors in not being loaded down, 
like some of the great electrical supply concerns of that period, 
with the enormous cost of years of experimental work, with the 
heavy expense of preliminary trials, failures, and alterations in its 
product. Guided by the alert talent of the engineers in the lab- 
oratory, the Pittsfield company engaged itself in the manufacture 
of perfected apparatus. But the rapid expansion of its business, 
although very profitable, compelled the carrying of a larger and 
larger amount of raw material and of material in process of manu- 
facture. The money market at the time was stringent. The 
financial managers of the company were not seldom embarrassed 



270 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

by lack of capital, and occasionally they, with the heavier stock- 
holders, borrowed money on their joint paper for the temporary 
needs of the corporation. During its first six months of existence, 
on a capital of $25,000, the company earned about $7,500. On 
May second, 1891, the capital was increased by vote to $50,000, 
and in that year the profit was $18,000. In the third year, the 
capital having been voted an increase to $100,000 on August 
ninth, 1892, the earnings were $54,000. In 1893 the capital was 
raised to $200,000, and to $300,000 in 1895. 

Early changes among the officers of the company may here be 
noted. In November, 1891, Henry Hine and William R. 
Plunkett took the places, as directors, of Charles E. Hibbard and 
Henry C. Clark. In July, 1893, Charles Atwater retired from 
the presidency and treasurership, and was succeeded by William 
W. Gamwell, whose duties of treasurer were assumed in Septem- 
ber, 1893, by William A. Whittlesey. In March, 1894, Messrs. 
Atwater and Stanley withdrew from the board of directors, and 
Walter F. Hawkins and George W, Bailey replaced them. Mr. 
Whittlesey, in January, 1896, declined re-election as treasurer, 
and Mr. Gamwell, the president, succeeded him, holding two 
offices until December, 1896, when George W. Bailey was chosen 
treasurer. 

Six years after the chartering of the company with a capitaliz- 
ation of $25,000, it was voted, on December, nineteenth, 1896, to 
increase the capital stock from $300,000 to $500,000. During 
the same brief period, the company had played a leading part in 
the enormous development of the use in America of electrical 
machinery, and a part equally remarkable in the industrial devel- 
opment of the city. Financed by local capital and managed by 
local men, the company was able to report, in 1897, that the as- 
sets exceeded the liabilities, except for capital stock, by $402,000 
and that the profits since 18§1 had been nearly $300,000. Pay- 
ments for wages in Pittsfield had amounted in five years to ap- 
proximately half a million dollars. Nevertheless, about $80,000 
of the capital stock voted to be issued in 1896 remained unsub- 
scribed. By this lack of local support some of the officers of 
the company appear to have been somewhat daunted. The 
value of the enterprise to Pittsfield was proved, and its future 



ELECTRICAL MANUFACTURING 271 

possibilities could hardly be estimated. The corporate managers, 
however, had little choice. Trade pressure by powerful rivals 
made expansion of capital imperative. Unless this could be 
periodically assured from investors at home, a sale of corporate 
control to investors from abroad was inevitable, and such a sale 
carried the contingency of the removal of the works from the city. 

In July, 1899, it was announced that control of the rights 
and property of the company had been sold; and it was later 
disclosed that the purchaser was Ferdinand W. Roebling, of the 
John A. Roebling Sons Company of Trenton, New Jersey. The 
sale was fully completed in January, 1900, and Mr. Roebling 
then became sole owner of the stock, with the exception of a few 
shares held by the local directors. The company was thereupon 
dissolved, and a new corporation, bearing the same name, was 
immediately organized under the laws of the state of New Jersey. 
The capital stock of the new company was, in 1900, fixed at 
$2,000,000, of which one-half was to be paid in. The new chief 
ofiicers were Dr. F. A. C. Perrine, president, William W. Gam- 
well, treasurer, and Henry Hine, general manager. Mr. Hine, 
however, soon withdrew. Cummings C. Chesney continued to 
be chief engineer of the works. 

The community at once was greatly perturbed by rumors that 
the plant was to be removed. A public meeting chose a commit- 
tee whose members used urgent efforts to obtain liberal sub- 
scriptions from local investors to stock in the reorganized cor- 
poration; a concerted attempt was made by leading citizens to 
convince the new management that the works might with mutual 
advantage be retained in Pittsfield. Finally, in March, 1900, 
there was popular rejoicing at the announcement that the shops 
would remain in the city. The new president. Dr. Perrine, who 
was Mr. Roebling's son-in-law, became a resident of Pittsfield, 
and the distinctively local character of the industry was not lost, 
although the financial control had passed elsewhere. 

Plans immediately took shape for the construction of a manu- 
facturing plant on a scale unprecedented in Pittsfield. The se- 
lection of the site at Morningside, near the line of the railroad 
track, was made known in April, 1900, and there the first building 
erected was the one used at present for the manufacture of trans- 



272 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

formers. In dimensions 500 by 90 feet, this shop was striking 
evidence of the growth of the enterprise in its decade of existence. 
AuxiHary buildings having been completed, the company was 
established in its new home in 1901; and the shop on Renne 
Avenue was abandoned, as well as the shop on Clapp Avenue, 
which until then had been utilized mainly for the manufacture of 
switchboards. The Morningside factory in 1901 gave employ- 
ment to about 1,200 operatives. The output of machinery in 
that year was represented by a sum of approximately one million 
dollars. There were then in use, throughout the United States 
and Canada, more than 500 "S.K.C." generators. The value 
set on the year's shipments for 1903 was, in round figures, $1,- 
500,000, and the maximum of the working force was 1,700, The 
vitality of the company's business and its prospective growth at- 
tracted more particular attention from the great financial powers 
of the country. 

The controlling owners of the corporate stock were then a 
small group of New York capitalists, which included, besides 
Mr. Roebling, William C. Whitney and Thomas F. Ryan. By 
this syndicate a sale of the company was effected, in 1903, to the 
General Electric Company of Schenectady, New York. The 
purchasing company, which is the largest manufacturer of elec- 
trical machinery and appliances in America, had been formed in 
1892 by the union of the Edison General Electric Company of 
Schenectady, New York, and the Thompson-Houston Company 
of Lynn, Massachusetts. 

Popular apprehension was again excited lest, by this sale, 
Pittsfield should lose the manufactory which had become the 
most powerful stimulant to the city's prosperity. It soon ap- 
peared, however, that it was not the immediate intention of the 
purchasers to consolidate the Pittsfield establishment with their 
system of factories, but rather to operate the local plant as an 
individual concern. The chief officers of the Stanley Electric 
Manufacturing Company under the new control were men well 
known to the community — W. Murray Crane, president, William 
W. Gam well, treasurer, and Cummings C. Chesney, one of the 
vice-presidents and the supervising engineer. Another vice- 
president in the reorganization was Dr. F. A. C. Perrine, who re- 



ELECTRICAL MANUFACTURING 273 

signed in the following year, 1904, when also resigned William W. 
Gam well, after service of the utmost value to the company, as 
president, treasurer, or director since its incorporation. 

William W. Gamwell was born at Pittsfield, February 
twentieth, 1850; and in 1874, he formed a partnership with 
Eugene H. Robbins to conduct a store on West Street for the sale 
of steam heating appliances. This establishment still maintains 
the success which has distinguished it for more than forty years. 
The rare business acumen possessed by Mr. Gamwell showed it- 
self in other directions. He was of great assistance to the man- 
agement of the Pittsfield National Bank, and was a capable 
president of that institution for several years. His death oc- 
curred on September twenty-first, 1913. 

His quiet, placid demeanor was that of an easy-going man; 
but behind it was a compelling personal force which he could so 
concentrate and utilize as to affect his associates and business 
antagonists often before they quite realized what was happening. 
Simple, human traits were strongly marked in him; he delighted 
in friendship, and in giving either pleasure or help to his friends. 
His keen sagacity was unpretentious, and perhaps for that reason 
was the more effective. The trust which people had in his 
shrewd judgment was strengthened by the reticence and calmness 
with which his judgment was applied. During the course of the 
momentous financial negotiations, which preceded the sale of the 
Stanley Electric Manufacturing Company and which in behalf 
of the Pittsfield concern were handled chiefly by Mr. Gamwell, 
this popular trust was especially manifest; and Mr. Gam well's 
connection with the Stanley Company from the beginning tended 
to fortify the enterprise in local confidence as well as to placate 
its internal discords. 

The year 1903, which witnessed the purchase of the Stanley 
Electric Manufacturing Company by the General Electric Com- 
pany, witnessed also the alliance of the former with the General 
Incandescent Arc Light Company of New York. The name of 
the concern was changed to the Stanley-G. I. Electric Manufac- 
turing Company. In 1907 the Pittsfield plant was formally and 
in all respects taken over by the General Electric Company, its 
individual corporate name and individual board of oflBcers were 



274 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

discontinued, and it became nominally, as it had been for four 
years practically, a part of the General Electric Company's sys- 
tem of factories, which includes works in Lynn and Schenectady. 
Throughout these changes, Cummings C. Chesney remained as 
general manager of the Pittsfield works, and in 1915 he still held 
that office. 

In December, 1905, plans were made public which signified 
a great expansion of the works at Morningside. The construc- 
tion cost of additions to the plant was about $280,000 in 1906, 
and about $300,000 in 1907. Five years later, in 1912, the ex- 
penditure for new buildings at the General Electric works at 
Pittsfield during the year was approximately $425,000. By 
these and other enlargements, the floor area of the shops was in- 
creased to 1,600,000 square feet. In 1915 the capacity employ- 
ment was about one-sixth of the population of the city. The 
plant then comprised twenty-two factories and the same number 
of auxiliary buildings. A complete and technical description of 
the product of the huge establishment would be out of place in a 
general history of Pittsfield. Some figures, however, are here 
impressive. The principal items of the annual output capacity 
were, in 1915, transformers aggregating 4,800,000 horse power, 
300,000 electric flat irons, 168,000 electric fans, and 24,000 small 
motors, while the product includes numerous machines and de- 
vices of other sorts. 

When the General Electric Company, in 1907, made the 
Pittsfield plant a component of its system, in name as well as 
actually, the development and progress of the local works be- 
came, of course, more definitely merged in the broader develop- 
ment and progress of the owning company ; and the city realized 
more forcibly that the thousands of people employed in the 
Pittsfield shops were employed by an absentee, and not by a 
Pittsfield, employer. The growth of the establishment, and the 
quality and quantity of the output, could no longer with strict 
truth be ascribed to Pittsfield enterprise. Nevertheless, Pitts- 
field did not cease to regard them with a sort of parental pride, 
quite apart from the satisfaction caused by the contribution 
made by the company to the city's prosperity. It was remem- 
bered that the plant owed its origin to Pittsfield spirit, that in its 



ELECTRICAL MANUFACTURING 275 

vigorous and aggressive youth it had been financed by Pittsfield 
capital, and that Mr. Chesney, who, under the General Electric 
Company, still managed the works, had been a Pittsfield citizen 
since 1891, when he was the first manager of the concern. Partly 
due to this popular feeling, perhaps, was the fact that the works, 
long after their absorption by the General Electric Company, 
were locally called "Stanley's" as often as by the name of their 
new ownership. 

William Stanley died at his home in Great Barrington, May 
fourteenth, 1916, while this book was in process of completion. 
He was born, November twenty-second, 1858, at Brooklyn, New 
York. Although he was a resident of Pittsfield for only a few 
years, beginning in 1890, his connection with Pittsfield effected 
the most marked change in its industrial character which had 
been experienced since the erection of the town's first woolen and 
cotton mills in the early years of the century, and the story of his 
life and achievements is a part of the story of the city. 

Mr. Stanley, the son of a distinguished lawyer, was engaged 
in the business of nickel-plating in New York in 1879, when he 
fell under the notice of Hiram Maxim. That famous inventor 
was then chief engineer of the United States Electric Light Com- 
pany, and he employed young Stanley as his assistant. The 
employment was not long continued, but seems to have deter- 
mined Mr. Stanley's career. He devoted himself to the inven- 
tion and perfection of a method of exhausting the bulbs of incan- 
descent lamps, and in 1883 and 1884 he conducted his researches 
in a private electrical laboratory in Englewood, New Jersey. 
There he was discovered by George Westinghouse, with whom he 
made a contract for the use of his inventions. While he was in- 
vestigating the problem of increasing the distribution area of 
electricity by the alternating current, Mr. Stanley's health 
broke down; and, in 1885, he removed his residence to Great 
Barrington, in Berkshire. In the same year, he devised his 
electrical transformer. Foregoing paragraphs of the present 
chapter have alluded to the revolutionary success in the science 
of electrical engineering accomplished by Mr. Stanley in 1886 by 
his demonstration in Great Barrington of his alternating current 
system, and by him and his Pittsfield associates, Messrs. Kelly 



276 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

and Chesney, in 1893 by the invention and construction of their 
polyphase, alternating current generator. 

After terminating his active connection with the Stanley 
Electric Manufacturing Company, Mr. Stanley continued to re- 
side in Pittsfield until about 1898, conducting for a part of the 
time a small shop and laboratory on West Street for the manu- 
facture and designing of electrical instruments. His home dur- 
ing the final years of his life was in Great Barrington. He travel- 
ed widely, and many of the leading electrical engineers of Europe 
enjoyed personal acquaintance with him. He worked, felt, and 
lived alike at high tension. His mind was peculiarly restless and 
in unexpected directions acquisitive; the breadth and depth of 
his information were unusual; and it is improbable that any 
other Berkshire man of his time could talk so entertainingly. In 
almost any English-speaking assemblage, he could gather an 
audience that would long remember him. 

The young men of his profession found that even a brief and 
casual association with him was a memorable stimulus. In the 
long life of Pittsfield, the city's association with Mr. Stanley was 
hardly more than brief and casual; nevertheless, the result was a 
stimulation which is not soon to be forgotten by the community. 



CHAPTER XIX 
LAW AND ORDER 

THE state first established a town police court in Pittsfield 
in 1850, by an act authorizing the appointment by the 
governor of one "person to take cognizance of all crimes, 
offences, and misdemeanors, whereof justices of the peace now 
have jurisdiction". Matthias R. Lanckton was commissioned 
as presiding justice of the new court; his successors were John 
A. Walker and Phineas L. Page. Sessions were held in a room 
provided by the town, sometimes on the lower floor of the town 
hall. In 1869 the court was transacting its business in a room 
in the Goodrich block on North Street, and was superseded then 
by the District Court of Central Berkshire, established by Chap- 
ter 416 of the Acts of 1869. 

This court was erected in response to a petition signed by in- 
habitants of Pittsfield, Dalton, Lanesborough, Hinsdale, Wind- 
sor, Richmond, Hancock, and Peru; and those towns were em- 
braced within its district of jurisdiction. Among the Pittsfield 
signers of the petition was Judge Page, of the town's police 
court, who found himself out of office soon after the petition was 
granted; for Governor Claflin appointed, as the first standing 
justice of the District Court of Central Berkshire, Gen. Henry 
S. Briggs of Pittsfield. Until the county court house was com- 
pleted in 1871, the District Court held sessions in the wooden 
lecture room of the First Church, next to the town hall. 

An historical sketch of a court of this description may be 
given, with more propriety than in the case of higher tribunals, 
by a characterization of the men who presided over it. When 
the court was erected, the grateful custom of the Commonwealth 
was to bestow civil office upon those who had served her well in 
the recent war between the states. Doubtless there were occa- 
sions when gratitude may have been invoked over-emphatically, 



278 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

but Pittsfield does not present conspicuous instances of them. 
Certainly the town was unusually fortunate in the appointments 
of the two veterans of the Civil War who, for nearly forty years, 
presided over its District Court. 

Henry Shaw Briggs, from the date of his admission to the bar 
in 1848 until the outbreak of the war in 1861, practiced law in 
Pittsfield. The son of Governor George Nixon Briggs, he was 
born in Lanesborough, August first, 1824, and was graduated 
from Williams College in 1844. He received his professional 
education at the Harvard Law School; in 1856 he was a repre- 
sentative from Pittsfield to the General Court; he was auditor of 
the Commonwealth from 1865 to 1869; and his legal training, 
as well as his personal character, made his appointment to the 
bench appropriate. No native of Berkshire achieved distinction 
more honorable than his in our great war. In 1861 he was cap- 
tain of Pittsfield's Allen Guard, a company of militia unattached 
to any regimental organization. He happened to be trying a law 
case in Boston on the April day when Governor Andrew ordered 
out the first contingent of Massachusetts regiments. Learning 
that one of them, the Eighth, lacked two companies, the Pittsfield 
lawyer, after court had been adjourned in the afternoon, hurried 
to the Governor and prevailed upon him to attach the Allen 
Guard to that command. In the morning the trial was re- 
sumed, but an advocate was missing. "Where is Mr. Briggs?" 
complained the presiding judge. "Captain Briggs, may it 
please the court," replied an attorney, "has gone to Washington 
at the head of his company". 

On June tenth, 1861, he was commissioned colonel of the 
Massachusetts Tenth, recruited in the western counties and one 
of the six regiments then furnished by the Commonwealth to 
serve for three years. Having been sent to join the Army of the 
Potomac, the Tenth first went into action on May thirty-first, 
1862, at the battle of Fair Oaks, Virginia, where Colonel Briggs 
was severely wounded in both thighs. As soon as he recovered, 
he returned to the front. In the meantime he had been pro- 
moted to be brigadier general for gallantry on the field. During 
the remainder of the war he served faithfully in Virginia, al- 
though his health was broken by the efifect of his wounds. His 



LAW AND ORDER 279 

memory will always be visibly preserved in Pittsfield by the 
bowlder and the bronze tablet, which were dedicated in 1907, 
near the court house. 

The District Court had General Briggs for its presiding jus- 
tice for four years. In 1873 he accepted the appointment by the 
United States government to be appraiser at the custom house in 
Boston. He retained, however, his home in Pittsfield, and there 
he died, September twenty-third, 1887. His wife, to whom he 
was married in 1849, was Miss Mary Talcott of Lanesborough. 

The type of manhood represented by the first judge of Pitts- 
field's District Court may be understood by reading two letters, 
exchanged in Virginia in 1862. This was written by a youthful 
Confederate officer: 

"To Col. H. S. Briggs, 10th Mass. Vols. 

''Colonel: Having obtained from one of my men a medallion, 
containing, I presume, the likenesses of your family, I return it 

to you Though willing to meet you ever in the 

field while acting as a foe to my country, I do not war with your 
personal feelings; and supposing the medallion to be prized by 
you, I take pleasure in returning it. 

"M. Jenkins, Col. Palmetto Sharpshooters." 

The following are extracts from the reply; and it will be ob- 
served that in the interval of correspondence both of these brave, 
gentle-hearted soldiers had been promoted. 

"To Gen. M. Jenkins, 

''General I beg to assure you of my high ap- 
preciation of the generous magnanimity and delicate courtesy 
of your act, and to thank you, with all my heart. . . . You 
will pardon me if I say, in alluding to a paragraph in your note, 
that I cannot, without pain, contemplate the meeting as a foe, 
even on the field, one who has performed so honorable an act, 
and conferred on me so great a favor. 

"I cannot say that I desire to requite the favor under similar 
circumstances, but I will assure you that, should any opportunity 
ever occur, I shall improve it with pleasure and alacrity. Until 
then, and ever, I shall hold you and your deed of kindness in 
grateful remembrance. 

"Henry S. Briggs, Brig. Gen. Vols. U. S. A." 

It was a matter of no slight importance to the community of 
Pittsfield, as well as to central Berkshire, that the authority of 
the new District Court should have been directed and personified 



280 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

by a man of whom the citizens were so proud and fond as they 
were of General Briggs, His successor on the bench in 1873 was 
Joseph Tucker. Here again legal and governmental experience 
had uncommonly equipped a soldier of the Civil War for the 
performance of the duties of presiding justice. 

Joseph Tucker, the son of George Joseph Tucker, was born 
in Lenox, August thirty-first, 1832. He was a graduate of Wil- 
liams College, in the class of 1851 ; and he studied law at Harvard 
and in the historic office of Rockwell and Colt, in the Pittsfield 
town hall. Admitted to the Berkshire bar in 1853, he practiced 
his profession in Detroit, St. Louis, and Great Barrington. 
From Great Barrington he enlisted, in 1862, in the Forty-ninth 
regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers. After the regiment was 
sent to Louisiana, Lieutenant Tucker was assigned to duty on the 
staff of General Chapin, the brigade commander; and in the ac- 
tion of Plains Store, May twenty-first, 1863, he received a wound 
which necessitated the amputation of a leg. At the close of the 
war, he resumed his law practice in Great Barrington. In 1866 
and in 1867 he was state senator from southern Berkshire; and 
he was elected for four successive years, beginning in 1868, to the 
office of lieutenant governor of the Commonwealth. In 1873 he 
became a resident of Pittsfield, and three years later he was mar- 
ried to Miss Elizabeth Bishop, daughter of Judge Henry W. 
Bishop of Lenox. 

Judge Tucker, then, was forty-one years old when he began 
his career as the magistrate of Pittsfield's court. His experience 
at the West, in the army, and at the state capital had broadened 
a mind naturally cosmopolitan, and had trained his knowledge 
of human nature to be so wide and tolerant that it could com- 
prehend many sorts and conditions of men. He soon acquired 
an almost uncanny knowledge of the currents, and crosscurrents, 
and undercurrents in the stream of Pittsfield life. 

To the work of the court he devoted himself, for thirty-four 
years. The tribunal, in the minds of the people, came to mean 
Joseph Tucker; and his official title was popularly used as if it 
were his Christian name. Correction from his bench was quick 
and sound, but no more so than was his sympathy. Sometimes 
his obiter dicta might cause uncertain witnesses or unhappy coun- 



LAW AND ORDER 281 

sel to wonder at finding themselves outside the dock, but the 
autocratic court was seldom beyond the reach of a stroke of 
honest humor. With those brought to distress by mere weak- 
ness or ignorance, the judge was patient and helpful, for his 
sense of the humane mission of his office was as effective as was 
that of his duty to punish wrongdoing and apply justice to civil 
dispute. 

Judge Tucker's value to the town and city of Pittsfield lay 
chiefly in the fact that a man of his caliber and stamp presided 
so long and so conscientiously over the District Court. In many 
other fields of service, nevertheless, his influence was notable. 
He was a prominent figure at town meetings, and over the last 
of them he was the moderator. He was long president of the 
Union for Home Work. For eleven years, and during a critical 
stage in the development of the public schools, he was the zealous 
and efficient chairman of the school committee. He was a trus- 
tee of the Berkshire Athenaeum. He was president of the Pitts- 
field Street Railway Company, and of the Berkshire County 
Savings Bank. At scores of public meetings, his earnest, pa- 
triotic addresses interested and moved his auditors. In private 
life. Judge Tucker was what Dr. Johnson would have called a 
"clubable" man; a lover of books, without being bookish; fond 
of good stories, good talk, good tobacco, good whist; one of that 
generation of friends who, with Robert W. Adam, William R. 
Plunkett, Morris Schaff, Dr. Jonathan L. Jenkins, and their 
kind, heard the chimes at midnight in the bright circle of their 
Monday Evening Club. 

He died in Pittsfield, November twenty-eighth, 1907. Even 
in the later years of his life, when many men of his age, of his re- 
finement, and in his circumstances, would have found the daily 
routine of municipal magistracy irksome and perhaps unworthy 
of their labor, he obeyed, in soldierly fashion, his high ideal of its 
consequence. He had become the people's familiar and steadfast 
representative of civic order and right citizenship; and the 
District Court, inspirited for more than thirty years by his 
strong character, grew to be rather a living force than a mere 
piece of legal mechanism. 

The successor of Judge Tucker was Charles Eugene Burke, 



282 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

who received the appointment December fourth, 1907. Judge 
Burke was born in Glastonbury, Connecticut, January fifth, 
1854, and died August fifth, 1913, having presided over the local 
court not quite six years. His youth was one of toil and poverty; 
but so stout was his ambition that while working as a mill hand 
at Barkerville he contrived to fit himself for college; and he was 
graduated from Williams in 1884. Two years later he was ad- 
mitted to the Berkshire bar. His practice of the law was charac- 
terized by unflagging industry and rewarded by patiently 
achieved success. Before his appointment to the bench, most 
of his professional experience had been in civil cases, and in office 
consultation. In the conduct, therefore, of the increasing civil 
business of the District Court, Judge Burke was able at once to 
prove the solid value of his legal scholarship, while to the proper 
and humane performance of the other branch of his judicial duty 
he applied himself with the same solicitude. He was a charitable, 
kindly-natured, unassuming man, whose honorable life had been 
a hard but always winning struggle. To many local philan- 
thropic movements he gave his assistance; and death removed 
him at the time when he seemed to be entering upon a larger 
field of usefulness to the community through his faithful work 
in the District Court. 

Judge Burke was followed on the bench by Charles L. Hib- 
bard, who was appointed in 1913 and is the present standing 
justice. 

The first clerk of the District Court, John M. Taylor, resigned 
the office after service of less than a year. The clerk for a few 
months following was Melville Eggleston; and he was succeeded 
by Walter B. Smith, whose earliest official entry on the court 
records was made in September, 1870. Captain Smith was born, 
February seventeenth, 1828, at Newmarket, New Hampshire; 
but at the outbreak of the Civil War he was a resident of Pitts- 
field. His war record, made as a member of the Tenth, the 
Twentieth, and the Thirty-seventh regiments, was extraordinary. 
He was three times cruelly wounded, he returned five times from 
the hospital to the field, he was in twenty-one important battles, 
and the dawn of peace in 1865 found him in Virginia and ready 
for more fighting, undaunted as a gamecock. Nor is that homely 



LAW AND ORDER 283 

simile otherwise inappropriate, for his stature was curiously 
slight. He was a brother of Joseph E. A. Smith, the poet and 
local historian. Captain Smith was clerk of the District Court 
for forty-two years. His life was beset by private cares, his 
strength was torn by the infirmities resultant from his old 
wounds, but he endured all with quiet courage, and the com- 
munity held him in respect and aflfection. He died in Pittsfield, 
July thirteenth, 1912, having in the same year resigned his posi- 
tion as clerk of the District Court. His successor was Thomas F- 
Conlin, the present clerk, who assumed the duties of the office in 
May, 1912. 

A small, single-storied, wooden building, which stood on a 
portion of the land occupied by the present police station on 
School Street, was in 1876 the headquarters of Pittsfield's police 
force. It had been erected in 1862. The printed report of the 
selectmen thus advised the voters at town meeting in that 
year: 

"The town will see that article 13 calls them to decide whether 
they will build a Station House and Lockup. The Lockup for 
the purpose of retaining or restraining those who are quarrelsome 
and disturbing the peace in and about the public streets; and a 
Station House for lodging a class of unfortunate transient poor, 
who are wandering about the country, seeking, as they allege, 
employment. Experience has taught the Board that both of 
these are necessary. , , , The first, and perhaps the best 
way is for the town to procure, if not already the owner, a piece 
of land near at hand to build a tenement sufiiciently large for the 
accommodation of a small family, and to attach to this tenement 
a Lockup and Station House, giving the family the use of the 
house and lot for superintending and taking care of the inmates 
of both. Another is to build a stone building, fireproof, or as 
nearly so as possible, on the northwest corner of the Town Lot, 
south of the road leading past the Baptist Church to the Pon- 
toosuc Engine House". 

The town meeting of 1862 adopted neither of these sugges- 
tions, but appropriated $1,000 for a new lockup. The selectmen 
built one for $880.12. The structure which the new station 
superseded had stood on the north side of the present School 
Street, behind the Baptist Church, and had been destroyed by 



284 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

fire in February, 1862. Thence an immured bard once addressed 
a poem to the chairman of the selectmen, beginning: 

"The Lockup is a lonely place, 
It sets a man a-thinking 
Of all the shame and deep disgrace 
Brought on himself by drinking". 

The loneliness of the place was unrelieved even by the 
presence of an official custodian, and resulted in a miserable and 
shocking tragedy in the fire of 1862, when a prisoner lost his life. 

The proximity to the village of large drill camps of recruits 
for the Civil War made advisable unusual attention to the preser- 
vation of order. There was no organized police force, in the 
modern sense of the term. The town annually chose constables, 
and the selectmen sometimes themselves applied the physical 
hand of the law. Watchmen were hired by the town govern- 
ment upon particular occasions; six men, for instance, were au- 
thorized as peace officers "in the time of the draft". The 
watchmen ordinarily employed were the constables, who received 
extra pay for their added duty. Upon the list of watchmen and 
constables appear with regularity the names of Jabez W. Fair- 
banks, James L. Brooks, Timothy Hall, and Samuel M. Gunn. 

The most conspicuous material agent for a long period in the 
preservation of the peace of the village was Timothy Hall's re- 
doubtable cane, wielded by one who transacted his business with 
something of the grim resolution of the ancient Covenanter. 
Mr. Hall was born at Cummington, Massachusetts, in 1800 and 
died at Pittsfield, November tenth, 1882. For forty-five suc- 
cessive years, after 1837, he served either as a local constable or 
deputy sheriff. He was fearless, muscular, and determined; 
even after he had grown old, he was a man whom to obey was 
wise; and his notion of official rights and duties was not narrow. 

Samuel M. Gunn was born in Pittsfield, June seventh, 1808, 
and there he died on June fourth, 1908, three days before his 
hundredth birthday. He formed an extraordinary link with 
the pioneer days of the village, for his great-grandmother was 
Mrs. Solomon Deming, whose monument in the little burial 
ground on Elm Street bears the inscription that it was "erected 
by the town of Pittsfield to commemorate the heroism and vir- 



LAW AND ORDER 285 

tues of its first female settler, and the mother of the first white 
child born within its limits". Mrs. Deming died in 1818, when 
Samuel M. Gunn was a boy of ten years; and, in his old age, he 
was able to recall in the twentieth century one who, before the 
Revolution, had defended her home against Indian marauders in 
Pittsfield, and circumstantially to recollect local afiFairs from the 
time when the central village possessed only twenty-three dwell- 
ings. But it was not for these reasons alone that Mr. Gunn was 
held in esteem by the town and city. He was a good type of the 
self-respecting Yankee farmer, helpful to his neighbors, and ready 
to carry his share of the community's burdens. 

The selectmen's report made in April, 1868, says: "The ex- 
pense incurred for Watchmen the last year is somewhat larger 
than previous years, owing to the frequent robberies and petty 
thieving. The selectmen have employed two persons to watch 
during the night since about last November". This date marks 
the first appearance in Pittsfield of what may be considered a 
police force on regular patrol duty. Those who served upon the 
force during its first five months of existence were E. B. 
Mead, Abram Jackson, and John R. Cole; and among its 
members in years immediately subsequent were Selden Y. 
Clarke, George W. Phillips, Daniel Barry, and Charles B. Wat- 
kins. In April, 1868, George Hayes was appointed a watchman, 
and in 1869 the selectmen created for him the double office, of 
which the title was as imposing as his girth, of "Turnkey of the 
Lockup and Special Constable in Attendance on the District 
Court of Central Berkshire". 

From 1868 until 1876 George Hayes was chief of the town's 
police, although not officially so designated until 1875. Under 
his ponderous supervision, the little squad of policemen was not 
characterized by a high state of discipline. Modern equipments, 
however, seem to have been introduced. The reports of the se- 
lectmen are evidence that in 1870 the town bought belts and 
"clubs" for the force, and in 1872 purchased dials for a night 
watch clock from "Shrewd, Crumb, and Co." 

The town meeting, it should be understood, continued to 
elect constables. John M. Hatch was so chosen in 1875, and 
was further entrusted by Chief Hayes with the captaincy of the 



286 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

night watch. In this position he comported himself so actively 
that at the next election of constables he was defeated at the 
polls by those who preferred less interference with their pastimes 
after sunset. To their dismay, the selectmen at once appointed 
Hatch chief of police. He took the office in April, 1876, and 
held it until June, 1881; and to him, under the selectmen, fell 
the task of first organizing in the town a permanent police force 
for service day and night. 

This was accomplished in 1876. The regular force, in April, 
1877, consisted of John M. Hatch (chief), John H. Hadsell 
(captain), Daniel Barry, James W. Fuller, James Solon, L. R. 
Abbe, and Patrick Cassidy, Each of the seven men was on duty 
twelve hours out of the twenty-four. The force, during the year 
1876-1877, made 256 arrests. The chief, who was no respecter 
of persons, classified one of the arrested individuals by profession 
as a "Justice of the Peace", and two as "Editors". 

While it would be a distortion to say that the Pittsfield of 
1876 was other than an orderly community, it is true that there 
was a small element to which the novel presence of uniformed 
officers on the streets was an irritating challenge. Of this ele- 
ment, the amiable desire was not the commission of felonies but 
the joining of combat with the new chief and his force. Hatch 
was well-equipped for encounters of this kind both by nature and 
by experience, a hardy, compactly built, energetic man, faithful 
in his duty to the town. He seems, however, to have been 
sometimes indiscreet in speech, and as a consequence often to 
have been in water at least tepid with some portion of the public. 

The hard times of 1873-1878 so increased the number of the 
transient poor that during the year ending in March, 1878, 2,240 
of them were sheltered in the flimsy, narrow police station on 
School Street, where they were nourished on crackers, at an an- 
nual expense of $40, and where in the winter months coffee was 
administered to those who shoveled snow from the crosswalks. 
Under the crowded conditions, a description of the nightly state 
of things in the lockup became almost impossible, even for the 
plain-spoken chief. Furthermore, the detention cells opened 
directly upon the "tramp room"; general jail deliveries could be 
prevented only with difficulty, and jail riots could not be pre- 



LAW AND ORDER 287 

vented at all. In 1879 the town built a new, brick station house, 
for which the appropriation was $2,800 and which still stands, as 
the front part of the present police station. 

James McKenna, a tall veteran of the Civil War, succeeded 
Hatch in the position of chief of the force in June, 1881. He 
served for five years, and was followed by John Nicholson, who 
became chief of police November thirtieth, 1886, and retained 
the position, under the town and city governments, until 1905, 
when he resigned because of his appointment as high sheriff of 
Berkshire County. 

In the later years of the town government, each member of 
the force was annually appointed by the board of selectmen, and 
appointed orally, moreover, and in the presence of the entire 
board. Perhaps this little yearly ceremony tended to impress 
upon the men a sense of their responsibility to the public; per- 
haps it reminded them that at the end of each period of twelve 
months they might fail of reappointment if they had shown 
themselves ineffective. Perhaps it did neither, but at any rate 
the town police of Pittsfield, under John Nicholson, exhibited 
commendable efficiency and discipline; and the morale then ac- 
quired continued after the small force of fourteen officers, in 
1891, entered the service of the city, under the same capable 
leadership. 

In the first year of the city government, Pittsfield's police 
force mustered seventeen men, who were called upon to make 
1,033 arrests. The station house in 1897 was substantially en- 
larged, and apparently just in time, for during that year the 
number of wayfarers who voluntarily sought lodgings there rose 
to the unprecedented total of 4,480. A patrol wagon was first 
placed in commission in 1903, and an electric signal system on the 
streets in 1906. In 1915 there were upon the force the chief, a 
captain, an inspector, a sergeant, thirty-three patrolmen, and a 
matron. When John Nicholson resigned from the office of chief 
of police, in 1905, William G. White was promoted to the position. 
The latter's resignation, after a service of thirty-two years in the 
department, took effect in January, 1913, and Daniel P. Flynn 
succeeded him in the following March. Mr. Flynn, born in 
Palmer, Massachusetts, in 1860, began his long and faithful ser- 



288 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

vice on Pittsfield's police force in 1887. While holding the 
office of chief, he died at Pittsfield, May eighth, 1915. On 
September thirteenth of the same year, John L. Sullivan, the 
present chief, was appointed. 

A record of Pittsfield's police cannot be concluded without 
honoring the name of Michael Leonard, Captain Leonard, a 
veteran of the force, gave his life to save the lives of others, ac- 
cording to the precepts of his duty. On the evening of May 
thirty-first, 1898, he was clearing the railroad tracks at the 
Union Station and assisting to a place of safety some helplessly 
bewildered spectators among the throngs gathered there to wit- 
ness the passing of troops enlisted for the Spanish war; he was 
struck by a locomotive; and he died on the following day, 
June first, at the House of Mercy. His death touched the 
community deeply. 

The town became the headquarters of Berkshire County's 
organization for the enforcement of law when the county seat 
was removed from Lenox to Pittsfield and the new county build- 
ings were finished in 1871. Graham A. Root was then the high 
sheriff of the county. He was born in Sheffield, Massachusetts, 
August first, 1820. In 1855, being a member of the General 
Court, he was appointed high sheriff by Governor Gardner, and 
two years later, when the office was made elective, he was chosen 
for the position by the voters of the county, who regularly re- 
elected him until he declined the nomination in 1880. He died 
in office on December third, 1880, having been high sheriff for 
twenty-five years. Few men were so popular or so well-known, 
not only in Pittsfield but throughout Berkshire. His person was 
imposing. A genial and companionable man, he could assume 
on formal occasions great stateliness of port. He held the office 
longer than any other high sheriff of the county, with the ex- 
ception of Henry Clinton Brown. Sheriff Root's immediate 
successor was Hiram B. Wellington, who served until 1887 and is 
now a special justice of the District Court of Central Berkshire. 
He was followed in the shrievalty by John Crosby. 

John Crosby was born in Sheffield, February fifteenth, 1829, 
and died in Pittsfield, December seventeenth, 1902. As one of 
Sheriff Root's assistants, he came to Pittsfield from Stockbridge 





HENRY L. DAWES 
1816—1903 



JAMES M. BARKER 
1839—1905 





WILLIAM E. TILLOTSON 
1842—1906 



ROBERT W. ADAM 
1825—1911 



LAW AND ORDER 289 

in 1869, and held the office of high sheriff of the county for nine 
years, beginning in 1887. Otherwise, and under both the town 
and city governments, he was often in the pubHc service, for 
which he was thoroughly adapted by the possession of the quali- 
ties of integrity, good judgment, and urbanely resolute decision. 
To the office of high sheriff he brought its traditional physical 
dignity and grace of presence; and his conduct of its duties was 
marked by kindliness as well as firmness. 

Succeeding Sheriff Crosby, on January first, 1896, Charles 
W. Fuller became high sheriff of the county. He was born in 
Great Barrington in 1858, he had been a deputy under Sheriff 
Wellington, and he was chief of police of North Adams at the 
time of his first election to the shrievalty. Having served for 
nine years. Sheriff Fuller died at Pittsfield, February first, 1905. 
To fill the vacancy occasioned by his death. Governor Douglas 
appointed John Nicholson, then Pittsfield's police chief, and 
the voters of the county have since retained him continuously in 
the office. 

The county jail on Second Street was twice the scene of exe- 
cution by hanging, before the legislature enacted that the legal 
penalty of death should be paid thereafter at the state prison in 
Charleston. John Ten Eyck was hanged at Pittsfield, August 
sixteenth, 1878, for a double murder committed in Sheffield, un- 
der circumstances of peculiar atrocity, on the evening of Thanks- 
giving Day in the previous year; and William Coy, convicted of 
killing John Whalen in the village of Washington in August, 1891, 
suffered death on the gallows in Pittsfield on March third, 1893. 
Coy, it is believed, was the only white man ever hanged in 
Berkshire County for the crime of murder. 



CHAPTER XX 
FIRE DEPARTMENT 

THE force of volunteer firemen was in 1876 well-organized, 
well-equipped, spirited, and competent. It had recently 
passed through a period of revival. The fire district, in 
1870, had purchased uniforms for the firemen, who had thereto- 
fore been obliged so to provide themselves from their own funds. 
Two steam fire engines, bought by the town, had been first used 
by the department in 1872. In 1873 the engine houses on 
School Street had been partly rebuilt, and on July third, 1874, 
the district had appropriated $2,000 for the erection of a brick 
hose tower. And not the least of the causes of the renewed 
efficiency of the department in 1876 was the fact that its master- 
ful and strenuous chief engineer was Deacon Jabez L. Peck, 
who officially reported of a fire in 1875 that *'by faithful and 
prompt attendance, and by overruling Providence, the injury 
was slight." 

There were four fire companies. The oldest in point of con- 
tinuous organization was the Housatonic Company, formed in 
1844. This company had charge of the steamer "Edwin Clapp," 
and was housed in a building on School Street, behind the Baptist 
Church. The George Y. Learned Company, with a steamer of 
the same name, occupied the south half of a wooden house facing 
the east termination of School Street; and the S. W. Morton 
Company, custodian of a hand engine belonging to the Boston 
and Albany Railroad, had quarters on Depot Street. These 
engine companies were known more familiarly as "Number 
One", "Number Two", and "Number Three". They maintained 
hose carts, in addition to their engines, and of each the full com- 
plement of membership was fifty men. The Grey lock Hook and 
Ladder Company of twenty-five members kept its truck and 
equipment in the north half of the wooden house at the end of 



FIRE DEPARTMENT 291 

School Street, of which the south part was tenanted by the 
George Y. Learned Company. 

For the erection of this two-company house, the district had 
appropriated $950 in 1853, and had voted at the same time to ex- 
pend $450 for the renovation of the original engine house, built 
in 1844 and occupied for nine years by three companies. The 
latter house was severely damaged by fire in 1859, and the brick 
building, which is the present headquarters of the Pittsfield Vet- 
eran Firemen's Association, was then erected for the use of Num- 
ber One Company. The two hand engines, purchased by the dis- 
trict in 1844, constituted in 1876 the reserve equipment of the 
department. A few years later, one of them was stationed at the 
factory village of Pontoosuc, where a large volunteer engine and 
hose company was formed. This organization made its first public 
appearance at a local muster in 1880, and dismayed the older 
companies by bearing off honors in competition. 

Each company was an individual organization, chose its own 
officers, and controlled the admission of new members, under the 
approval of the district's board of engineers. Upon the second 
floor of the engine houses were the rooms for the company meet- 
ings, which were, in effect, club parlors. Rivalry between the 
companies was strong, and by this the public was in the main a 
gainer, because the most obvious way to show superiority was 
through the display of alertness, competence, and daring at a fire. 
There the work of the companies often was not dependent solely 
upon the active members. The chief engineer in 1876 was of the 
opinion that "the efficiency and discipline of the department is 
largely due to the very many veteran firemen who still 'run with 
the machine' ". A considerable number of the town's influential 
men had been, at one time or another, members of the two older 
companies; and although they did not, all of them, in 1876 "run 
with the machine", they retained a salutary interest in the affairs 
of the department. 

Until 1883, five members only of the fire department were 
paid. They were an engineer and a stoker for each steamer, and 
a caretaker of the hose and hose tower. Men joined the depart- 
ment merely because they wanted to; and, while craving for 
lively fellowship and adventure had a good deal to do with this 



292 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

inclination, an earnest desire to help neighbors in time of sudden 
need was by no means absent. It is remembered of the old vol- 
unteer fire companies of Pittsfield that the humorous shirker, who 
flinched in an emergency, was not the most popular frequenter of 
the clubrooms. The department was a significant part of the 
community life, teaching its members to value a man otherwise 
than by his social graces or his bank account; and beneath its 
more or less boisterous fun lessons were to be learned of honest 
civic duty. 

The chief engineer was elected yearly at the meeting of the 
fire district. Jabez L. Peck, who had become chief of the depart- 
ment first in 1859 and had then so served for five years, was again 
chosen in 1873. He was re-elected annually until 1878, when he 
was succeeded by William H. Teeling. 

Mr. Teeling was born in East Albany, New York, July sixth, 
1820, and became in 1838 a resident of Pittsfield, where he died 
on November twenty-fourth, 1900. He conducted a large 
bakery which was in the front rank of the town's minor indus- 
tries. His connection with the fire department was of long 
standing, dating back, indeed, to the formation in 1844 of the 
Housatonic Engine Company, of whose by-laws he was one of the 
original signers. As a chief engineer, he was enthusiastic and 
picturesque, 

George S. Willis, Jr., followed William H. Teeling, being 
elected by the district in 1882. Mr. Willis was a native of Pitts- 
field, where he was born in 1841. To the performance of his 
duties as chief engineer of the department he devoted more than 
ordinary zeal and time, for he was an energetic, bustling, pro- 
gressive man, fond of accomplishing improvements, and per- 
sistent in his desire to discard outdated methods. His industry 
seems to have been appreciated by the fire district, for he was 
the first chief engineer to receive a salary, and the first to be pro- 
vided with office room for the transaction of business. Popular 
with firemen throughout the state, he left Pittsfield shortly after 
he ceased to be chief engineer in 1887, and engaged himself in 
Boston in the sale of fire department supplies. On December 
fifth, 1909, he died at Sandwich, New Hampshire; his grave is in 
the Pittsfield cemetery. 



FIRE DEPARTMENT 293 

In 1887 George W. Branch was elected chief engineer, and 
served until the abolition of the fire district. As first assistants 
to the chief engineer, the district chose, during the period from 
1876 to 1891, Edwin Clapp, George S. Willis, Jr., William G. 
Backus, Erastus C. Carpenter, Terence H. McEnany, and John 
^J. Powers. 

In the fire district's area of about four square miles there were, 
in 1876, sixty -one street hydrants and sixteen water tanks. 
The latter were of great importance. "Within a radius of 400 
feet of the west end of the Park", reported the chief, "there are 
contained in seven fire tanks more than 133,000 gallons of water 
— a quantity sufficient, in case of Ashley water being shut off, to 
supply both our steamers nearly six hours". The number of 
street hydrants was increased slowly by the fire district. In 1880 
it was 72; in 1890, the last year of fire district government, it 
was 101. After twenty-five years of city government, the num- 
ber of street hydrants was, in 1915, 573. 

Until 1883, alarms of fire were given in haphazard village 
fashion, by ringing church bells. This sound was liable to mis- 
interpretation by the zealous firemen. The report of Chief 
Engineer Peck notes that "on the twenty -fifth of February 
(1878) a meeting was held at the South Church for the purpose 
of receiving subscriptions for the liquidation of the church debt. 
The contribution was so generous that the amount of the indebt- 
edness was substantially all subscribed, whereupon the sexton 
rang the bell as a manifestation of his happiness over the result. 
The ringing was mistaken for an alarm, and the department 
promptly turned out". Often the bell alarm was supplemented 
by blowing the steam whistle at Butler and Merrill's woodwork- 
ing shop on North Street. 

In 1876 the fire district voted that a signal "such as the engi- 
neers may decide upon, be requested to be used by the different 
steam whistles in town to give an alarm"; and in 1877 a com- 
mittee was appointed "to examine and test the apparatus now 
ready for trial to give a continuous alarm for fire, connected 
with the bell on the First Congregational Church". The district 
appropriated $150 in 1881 for "putting in a telephonic alarm in 
the Police Headquarters, and to provide a watchman at night 



294 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

thereat to answer the telephone fire alarms". In 1882 money 
was voted by the district for installing a telegraphic alarm system, 
valued at $5,000, for which the sounder was the bell of the First 
Church, and this was placed in commission in January of the 
following year, with twenty-two street boxes. The bell alarm 
was reinforced in 1884, by utilizing also the steam whistle of the 
Terry Clock Company's shop on South Church Street. But 
many citizens, then, as later, desired a more noisy alarm. It is 
apparent that Chief Engineer Willis was ready to give them ample 
satisfaction; he officially recommended that the height of the 
hose tower be increased and that a bell weighing 3,000 pounds, 
with a striker, be placed therein, and that bell strikers be installed 
also in the towers of St. Joseph's and the South Street Churches, 
thus obtaining, in case of fire, the sound of three large bells and a 
steam whistle. The mere suggestion, which was not adopted, 
appears to have quieted the community. Subsequently the fire 
alarm system was connected with the shop whistle of the Pitts- 
field Electric Company; and in 1915 an apparatus was installed 
at the central fire department house, which gave the alarm by a 
"hooter", operated by compressed air. The number of fire alarm 
boxes was seventy-one in 1915. 

During the final fifteen years of the fire district government, 
the improvement of the apparatus in charge of the fire depart- 
ment kept a pace reasonably equal with the public need. Each 
of the three engine companies undertook to provide itself, at its 
own expense, with a new hose cart. The cart so purchased by 
the George Y. Learned Company was a source of especial pride to 
the members of Number Two. In 1880 the district bought for 
the use of the Hook and Ladder Company a ladder capable of ex- 
tension to the unprecedented height of fifty feet, and concerning 
it the chief engineer's report explained that a ladder was desired 
which could be lengthened "or shortened so as to reach the rooms 
over the stores in the town's large buildings". The district in 
1886 further increased the efficiency of the Hook and Ladder 
Company by supplying it with a new truck. The most substan- 
tial addition to the equipment of the department, however, was 
made in 1885, when the town purchased a third steam fire engine. 
At first it was not placed in the hands of an organized company. 



FIRE DEPARTMENT 295 

but was held in reserve. Horses for drawing the heavier appara- 
tus were provided by various livery stables, among which rivalry 
in alertness produced prompt action. 

In the meantime, the manual force of the department was in- 
creased by the organization in 1883 of a fifth volunteer company. 
It was called the "Protectives, Number One", and it was formally 
accepted by the fire district in 1884. The company was intended 
to be a fire police, and its duty was to protect property in build- 
ings endangered by fire. Its equipment included waterproof 
covers and hand extinguishers, carried originally on the ancient 
Pontoosuc hose cart, and afterward on a horse-drawn wagon. 
The Protectives had headquarters in the supply house connected 
with the hose tower. 

For the accommodation of the S. W. Morton Company, the 
town provided a new house in 1887. The company had been dis- 
possessed of its quarters on Depot Street and was using a room 
in a Fenn Street block for its meetings, while its apparatus was 
stored in the town's tool house. Its new engine house, for which 
the appropriation was $7,000, stood, on the east side of North 
Street, between the railroad bridge and Melville Street, and was 
a well-designed structure of brick. When it was ready for oc- 
cupancy, the third, or "Silsby", steamer was consigned to the 
custody of its tenants. 

The chief engineer first received a salary in 1883, and the 
gradual change from a purely volunteer to a paid fire department 
in Pittsfield was again noticeable in 1885. In the previous year, 
arrangements had been made whereby four or five men slept 
every night in each engine house, and in 1885 these "bunkers", 
so-called, began to receive a yearly compensation, which at first 
was thirty dollars. But until the town became a city, and the 
old fire district went out of existence, the department remained 
essentially a volunteer organization. The recommendation of 
Chief Engineer Branch in 1889 that the manual force be reduced 
to twelve men to a company met with little favor. Even after 
the installation of the city government, the fire companies re- 
tained much of that esprit de corps characteristic of independent 
volunteer bodies, and this was especially true of the Protectives. 
However, the passing of the regulation of all fire department af- 



296 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

fairs into the hands of a committee of the city council so altered 
conditions in the department, and by city ordinances it was so 
reduced in membership and so reorganized, that the year 1891 
may be considered as the termination of the distinctively volun- 
teer system. 

From 1876 to 1891, the Housatonic Company had for its 
foremen Edwin Clapp, John S. Smith, and Harley E. Jones. Its 
assistant foremen were John S. Smith, John Howieson, Lucien D. 
Hazard, F. V. Hadsell, and Sanford Desmond. Clark F. Hall 
was its treasurer during the entire period of fifteen years, while 
the successive clerks were William F. Osborne, Henry V. Wolli- 
son, John Howieson, Harley E. Jones, James Goewey, and G. H. 
Gerst. 

The continuity of organization maintained by the Housatonic 
Company was unique. Edwin Clapp, first elected foreman in 
1846, was annually so chosen until 1883, when he declined the 
nomination; other officers had periods of service as remarkably 
long. By the internal harmony thus displayed, company pride 
and self-respect were fostered, as well as by a good record of use- 
fulness to the community. The organization boasted of being 
the oldest engine company, in point of continuous service, in 
Massachusetts. Its spirit was always the democratic, conserva- 
tive, and reliable spirit of its village days, and upon its roll of 
both active and veteran members were names of citizens broadly 
representative of the entire town. 

The large "anniversary sociables" of the Housatonic Company 
were festal events which commingled dining, music, dancing, and, 
until about 1879, a good deal of oratory. In 1885 the company 
first joined the George Y. Learned and Protective Companies in 
organizing a yearly "Union Firemen's Ball" at the Academy of 
Music, which took the place of the former anniversary celebra- 
tions. During the winter months, the members of the Housa- 
tonic Company, as well as of the other companies of the volunteer 
fire department, were in the habit of entertaining their friends 
of the gentler sex at "socials" in the company parlors; and the 
ladies reciprocated by elaborately decorating the company's 
apparatus with flowers on inspection and muster days. 

The foreman in 1876 of the George Y. Learned Company, 



FIRE DEPARTMENT 297 

Number Two, was Warner G. Morton, who was followed in office, 
until 1891, by John Allen Root, John Nicholson, Theodore L. 
Allen, William F. Francis, and C. I. Lincoln. The assistant 
foremen were Louis Blain, Theodore L. Allen, William F. Francis, 
Harry A. Taylor, Frank Smith, John Noble, A. W. Stewart, and 
F. J. Clark. The clerks were Theodore L. Allen, Charles H. 
Brown, William F, Francis, Frank C. Backus, Harry A. Taylor, 
Frank Harrison, Enos I. Meron, Joseph E. Purches, and Jerry 
Coonley. Albert Backus, Charles H. Brown, Theodore L. Allen, 
and Arthur Smith were the treasurers. 

Apparently the George Y. Learned Company, while diligent 
in evincing dash and competence on duty, cultivated its fraternal 
life with unusual ardor. The company seems to have been dis- 
tinguished, at least after 1876, by the invigoration of a youthful, 
pushing element, fond of fine equipment and uniforms, and of 
striving, whether on actual service or not, to excel all rivals. 
Its hospitalities were frequent; its field days and excursions were 
popular; and its annual concert and ball, held at the Academy 
of Music, was an occasion of much renown. The organization, 
more conspicuously perhaps than the other companies, fulfilled 
every purpose of a social club. 

An entry on the record book, under the date of January 
seventh, 1875, is now curious. "Moved that ladies be admitted 
to our company as members, which led to some debate, as the 
idea seemed both new and novel. Still, a general feeling pre- 
vailed among those present for something of this character on 
account of the social infiuences attending such a movement, and 
it was Voted — that ladies be admitted to this company as hon- 
orary members". That this "both new and novel" scheme was 
carried into effect, does not appear. It was in 1875, too, that the 
company's clerk "advocated the formation of a glee club, with an 
instructor' ' . The proposal may have been inspired by an offer made 
by William Renne in 1874 to give a prize of twenty -five dollars 
to the volunteer fire company which should excel in the singing 
of the hymn "Coronation" at a competition in the Methodist 
Church. This musical contest, however, the firemen disdained. 
The members of Number Two turned to an enterprise less me- 
lodious; and under the name of the "George Y. Learned Bat- 



298 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

tery" twelve of them were organized in 1876 as a squad of artil- 
lerymen, taking charge of a fieldpiece, which, for the purpose of 
firing salutes, had been purchased for $658 by a "Fourth-of-July 
Association" of citizens. 

The S. W. Morton Company, Number Three, was long handi- 
capped by inadequate quarters and inferior apparatus; and, be- 
cause in its earlier days it was chiefly composed of employees of 
the railroad, its personnel was often necessarily changed and it 
therefore lacked solidarity. Its stalwart and energetic hose 
company, however, was always a valuable component of the 
department. From 1876 to 1887, the foremen of Number Three 
were Michael Fitzgerald, James Goewey, Terence H. McEnany, 
M. F. Doyle, M. J. Connors, John Powers, and James Reagan. 
In 1887 the company was rejuvenated by its installation in the 
new house on North Street. Between 1887 and 1891, the foremen 
were James Reagan, J. J. Bastion, and J. E. Doolan; the assistant 
foremen were John Kelly and James O'Connell; the clerks were 
J. J. Bastion, W. Carley, and James Cummings; and the treas- 
urers were Thomas Murray and Dennis Hay Ion. 

The Greylock Hook and Ladder Company, characterized 
consistently by good discipline, had for foremen, after 1875, 
Chester Hopkins, P. Roberts, J. H. Granger, R. Crandall, San- 
ford Carpenter, E. C. Carpenter, Charles Miller, George W. 
Frey, and William McCarry. Its assistant foremen were P. 
Roberts, William Carpenter, Charles Miller, Sanford Carpenter, 
Chester Hopkins, John Corkhill, E. C. Carpenter, William H. 
Hunt, and P. H. Honiker. Its clerks were C. Watkins, C. H. 
Miller, James Burlingame, W. A. Harrington, Frank Robbins, 
W. G. Keyes, Frank Smith, and Dwight A. Clark; and B. F. 
Robbins, Lyman E. Fields and Michael Meagher served as its 
treasurers. 

The company of Protectives, from its formation in 1883 to 
the formal disbanding in 1907, was animated by the enthusiasm 
natural to an organization of which the duty was unique and of 
which the membership was somewhat carefully restricted. In 
its early years, the company was encouraged both by Chief 
Engineer Willis and by the fire insurance authorities; and for 
this encouragement there seems to have been good reason. It 



FIRE DEPARTMENT 299 

cannot be denied that in the volunteer days of Pittsfield's fire 
department the rush of rivalry between the different hose and 
engine companies occasionally led to disregard of the protection 
of property, and that needless damage, through causes other than 
fire, was not quite uncommon. The members of the Protectives, 
having the authority of special police officers, were called upon 
to remedy such conditions. They were, in the first instance, 
drawn mostly from the George Y. Learned Company. 

The captains of the Protectives from 1883 to 1891, were 
Theodore L. Allen, J. B. Harrison, and Edward S. Davenport; 
and the lieutenants were J. B. Harrison, Walter Watson, William 
P. Learned, and Frank W. Hill. Those who served the company 
as clerk and treasurer during the same period were James W. 
Dewey, James Denny, Frank W. Hill, and S. Chester Lyon. 

Some of the conspicuous opportunities which the department 
had of proving its usefulness between 1876 and 1891 may here 
be recorded, although several have been mentioned in other 
chapters. The most prolific single field of action for the firemen 
during this period was afforded by the barns and stables, suc- 
cessively built to the south of the Burbank Hotel on the site of 
the present railroad station. The hotel stables were burned 
three times — on December thirty -first, 1880, when the thermom- 
eter registered a temperature of twenty degrees below zero, on 
October fourth, 1883, and on October first, 1885. The list of 
destructive fires elsewhere includes those at the old medical 
college building on South Street, on March thirty-first, 1876; 
at the Pomeroy "satinet mill", on December fifteenth, 1876; 
at the "lower stone mill" at Barkerville, on January tenth, 1879; 
at the Weller buildings on North Street, on April twenty-third, 
1881 ; at Abraham Burbank's upper brick block on North Street, 
on March sixth, 1883, and again on August first, 1888; at the 
lower Pomeroy mill, on December eighth, 1885; at Booth and 
Company's woodworking shop on First Street, on March sixth, 
1886; at C. H. Booth's silk mill, near River Street, on August 
tenth, 1888; at James H. Butler's lumber yard on Fenn Street, 
December nineteenth, 1888; and at the Bel Air mill on upper 
Wahconah Street, on February fifteenth, 1890, 

So far as can be ascertained from the chief engineers' reports, 



300 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

which were made annually in April, the department responded to 
259 calls between April first, 1876, and December thirtieth, 1890. 
The lowest number of alarms recorded in any departmental 
year was eight, in 1877-1878; the highest was thirty-two, in 
1885-1886. 

Finally, before leaving the subject of the department under 
the town and fire district government, it is to be said that the 
memories and much of the spirit of the volunteer period have 
been faithfully and pleasantly preserved by the Pittsfield Veteran 
Firemen's Association. Having its home on School Street, in 
the house formerly occupied by the Housatonic Company, this 
large association has been the means of maintaining many com- 
panionships and many traditions of other days. 

The reorganization of the department under the ordinances 
of the city government proceeded rapidly. In 1892 the mem- 
bership of each company was reduced to fifteen; and in 1905 
a revision of the fire department ordinances became efifective 
which prescribed fourteen men in the department on permanent 
duty, and fifty in the "call force". In 1915 the permanent 
force numbered thirty-five, and the call force eighteen. Under 
the city government, the successive chief engineers, with the 
years in which they took office, have been George W. Branch 
(1891), William F. Francis (1896), Lucien D. Hazard (1907), and 
William C. Shepard (1911). 

The city lost little time in providing new headquarters for its 
remodeled fire department. The present central fire station, of 
brick, facing the head of School Street, was erected in 1895, and 
after the dedication of the building, on September twenty-fourth 
of that year, all divisions of the Pittsfield fire department were, 
for the first time in its history, suitably housed. In 1906 a brick 
station was completed on Tyler Street at Morningside; thither 
was removed the apparatus kept in the department's North 
Street house, which was then abandoned. In 1913 the wooden 
station at West Pittsfield, tenanted by a volunteer company, was 
damaged by fire and in the following year it was restored and en- 
larged. 

The West Pittsfield Company appears to have been formally 
organized as a part of the city department in 1905, after which 



FIRE DEPARTMENT 301 

its foremen were A. N. Parker, Fred Jones, William T. Quinn, 
and Joseph Merriam. A steam fire engine was assigned to it in 
1913, Other volunteer companies have existed from time to 
time in the outlying factory villages and at the General Electric 
plant, equipped with hose reels and hand engines. 

The facilities afforded by the central station made more 
readily possible the stabling of horses by the department. They 
were first purchased in 1896, and in 1898 dependence was no 
longer placed upon the livery stables. A chemical engine was 
added to the apparatus in 1899; in the following year three 
wagons were used, carrying a combined chemical and hose equip- 
ment, and, though many fires thereafter were extinguished by 
the chemical engines, an additional steamer was purchased in 
1909. An automobile fire truck was first utilized in 1911; in 
1912 the department was equipped with a so-called "aerial 
ladder truck," propelled by a gasoline and electric motor; com- 
bination chemical and hose motor trucks were provided in 1914; 
and in 1915 the use of horses was completely given up. 

The purchase of the aerial ladder was hastened by an extra- 
ordinary series of disastrous fires on North Street in 1912, be- 
ginning with the one which burned the Academy of Music in 
the early morning of January twenty-eighth. Spreading to ad- 
jacent buildings on the north and east, this conflagration was 
the most savage and spectacular in the experience of the city. 
It was followed, on February ninth, 1912, by the burning of two 
blocks on the west side of North Street, above Summer Street; 
and on February twenty-third by a destructive fire in the block 
on the west side of North Street below Summer Street, which 
was again attacked by fire on July fourteenth. The total fire 
loss for the year, insured and uninsured, was computed to be 
$328,000. The department responded to 160 alarms. 

The smallest number of alarms recorded in any one year dur- 
ing the quarter-century after 1890 was twenty-one in 1891, 
and the largest was 219 in 1914. In the latter year the per- 
sistence of an incendiary, who was finally restrained, taxed the 
vigilance of the department. After 1890, some of the more 
serious fires, besides those mentioned in the preceding paragraph, 
were in the Brackin block on North Street, July fourteenth, 1891, 



302 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

and in Bridge's livery stable on Columbus Avenue, in the same 
year, on November thirteenth; in Wright's wooden block on 
North Street, February seventeenth, 1898; in the Whittlesey- 
Sabin building on Cottage Row, February nineteenth, 1905; 
in the Riley block, on the north corner of Depot and North 
Streets, December twenty-sixth, 1909; and in the building next 
north of the Berkshire Life Insurance Company's building, Jan- 
uary thirty -first, 1914. 



CHAPTER XXI 
NEWSPAPERS 

TWO newspapers, the Pittsfield Sun and the Berkshire 
County Eagle, were published in Pittsfield in 1876, They 
were weeklies; of the Sun the day of issue was Wednesday, 
of the Eagle, Thursday. Founded in 1800 by Phineas Allen 
and conducted by him and by his son, Phineas Allen, 2nd, for 
seventy-two consecutive years, the Sun had been a political tract 
rather than, in the modern sense, a newspaper. Even so late as 
1870 it resembled a village journal of the early part of the cen- 
tury, devoting nearly all of its space to national or state affairs, 
rigidly and often savagely partisan, and abstemious to the point 
of prudery in dealing with the everyday news of the town. Its 
founder was a stern precisian and an uncompromising Democrat, 
and of Phineas 2nd it was believed that he shaped his editorial 
policy solely by doing what he judged his father would have done 
under similar circumstances. The result was that the Sun was, 
for those days, an old-fashioned newspaper in 1872, when Phineas 
Allen, 2nd, turned over the ownership to a relative, Theodore L. 
Allen. The latter, in August of the same year, sold the paper 
to William H. Phillips, then of North Adams. 

The Sun at the time of its purchase by Mr. Phillips was 
printed in a brick building, the Allen block, on the east side of 
lower North Street, on the site now numbered twenty-four. 
It had been housed on this land since 1808, having previously 
to that year had homes on the west side of North Street, on East 
Street, and on Park Square, "in Mr. Griswold's elegant new 
building west of the meeting house". 

Mr. Phillips had already acquired newspaper experience, and 
in a school less conservative than that of the Phineas Aliens. 
Under his management the Sun bestowed its rays more than 
formerly upon local happenings, and showed evidence, whether 



304 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

for good or evil, of modern reporting. Its format was the un- 
wieldy blanket sheet, so-called, of four pages. This was altered 
by Mr. Phillips to one of eight pages, with six columns to a page. 
The advertising rate was announced in 1876 to be eighteen dol- 
lars for the single insertion of a column. The yearly subscription 
was two dollars. The circulation in Berkshire outside of Pitts- 
field was considerable and the regular correspondents from the 
smaller towns were fain to include much sound Democratic doc- 
trine in their weekly newsletters. Indeed, the contributors to 
the paper and its readers throughout the county had grown to 
constitute what was in effect a county political machine. This 
the new proprietor may have suspected before he acquired the 
Sun. At any rate, Mr. Phillips soon offered himself as a candi- 
date for office, and in 1874 he was elected to the state senate. 
During the absence of the owner in Boston, the acting editor of 
the paper was Hiram T. Oatman, who had first come to Pittsfield 
in 1874 to be the superintendent of the Sun's press room. 

The next proprietor of the newspaper was Horace J. Canfield 
of Stockbridge, whose name first appears as owner in the issue 
of January second, 1878. Mr. Canfield was also a member of 
the General Court, and he also engaged, as his acting editor, 
Mr. Oatman, who had in the meantime seceded temporarily to 
the Eagle office. The Sun remained in the possession of Mr. 
Canfield until 1882, but his personal conduct of the paper was 
intermittent. In August, 1878, he leased it to a partnership 
composed of James L. Ford and John P. Clark. Mr. Clark was a 
Pittsfield printer, and Mr. Ford was a youthful journalist trying 
his wings, which afterward bore him to a point of no slight eleva- 
tion in the region of book and magazine authorship in New York. 
The publishing lease of Messrs. Ford and Clark expired in Feb- 
ruary, 1879, and in March of the same year Samuel E. Nichols 
became, under Mr. Canfield, publisher and editor of the Sun. 
Mr. Nichols, simultaneously with editing and publishing the 
newspaper, conducted the former Allen book store, to which he 
had added a department for the sale of pianos and music; and 
he seems to have assumed too many burdens. In 1882 he was 
financially crippled, and Mr. Canfield was ready to dispose of the 
Sun or perhaps to discontinue it. 



NEWSPAPERS 305 

A few Democrats came to the rescue of their historic organ, 
and in March, 1882, the Sun Printing Company was incor- 
porated to purchase the Sun and the printing plant. The presi- 
dent and treasurer of the company was John F. Allen, a son of 
the Phineas Allen who had founded the paper in 1800. With 
Mr. Allen on the first board of directors were William R. Plunkett, 
Francis E. Kernochan, Horace J. Canfield, and John G. Holland. 
It was their immediate good fortune to be able to give to the 
paper an editor who could inject into it a strong and racy indi- 
viduality. 

James Harding was born in Nutsford, England, July eigh- 
teenth, 1843, and when he was a boy his parents settled in the 
Massachusetts town of Lee. There he found newspaper em- 
ployment on the Gleaner and as the correspondent from Lee of the 
Berkshire County Eagle; and by the Eagle he was summoned to 
Pittsfield in 1868 to be a member of its regular staff. He re- 
mained with the Eagle until 1882, when he became editor of the 
Sun, and in that position he labored for twenty-four years. On 
September sixteenth, 1906, he died at Pittsfield. 

Mr. Harding, while a vigilant gatherer of news, was essentially 
a humorous writer, and one of those humorous writers who, in 
Thackeray's words, "appeal to a great number of our other 
faculties, besides our mere sense of ridicule". His pen could 
readily excite mirth, and it could as readily excite scorn or sym- 
pathy. He had taught himself a vivid, exuberant style, which 
sometimes led him into excesses of plain speaking and of invec- 
tive; but in his later years this style was tempered, and many 
articles appearing in the Sun during that period of Mr. Harding's 
editorship, some of which were appropriately reprinted in a 
memorial volume after his death, testify to his cheerful and 
charitable philosophy and to his tenderness of heart. 

Meanwhile, however, the competition by two local dailies 
increased against the veteran weekly, so far as the timeliness of 
the publication of news in Pittsfield was concerned, and on the 
other hand a flood of cheap weekly periodicals, with attractive 
premium lists, began to inundate the rural districts, where the 
generation brought up to regard the Sun as a sort of household 
fixture was passing away. In the face of these conditions Mr. 



306 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

Harding wrought valiantly and, while his health permitted, 
successfully; people read the Sun not so often to be informed of 
the news as to be interested and usually amused by Mr, Harding's 
way of recording and commenting upon it, and the Sun became 
for the community a week day preacher, while it endeavored at 
the same time to fulfill the purpose of a newspaper. Pictures 
were introduced, and various magazine-like departments were 
included, many of which were written, and written with literary 
artistry, by Mr. Harding under different pen names. In 1905 
the Sun absorbed a periodical called Berkshire Resort Topics, and 
thus a new department, devoted to the doings of summer visitors, 
became a valuable addition to the paper. 

But the Sun had been so developed that it was, after all, 
James Harding himself; and eleven days following his death the 
last number was issued, on September twenty -seventh, 1906. 
The paper had been in course of continuous publication for 106 
years. 

The last number was published in a building on Renne Ave- 
nue, whence the Sun Printing Company migrated from North 
Street and where at present it actively carries on its business of 
job printing. John F. Allen, the first president, retained that 
office until his death, April twenty-third, 1887. He was born in 
Pittsfield on August twenty-sixth, 1841, and he inherited his 
father's loyalty to the town and high ideals of journalism. He 
was succeeded in the presidency of the Sun Printing Company by 
William Mink. Mr. Mink was born in Rhinebeck, New York, 
in 1832, came to Pittsfield in 1855, and entered the employ of the 
Eagle, in its composing room. He was a sergeant during the Civil 
War in the Thirty -fourth regiment of Massachusetts infantry. 
Resuming his trade after the war, Mr. Mink became probably the 
most expert printer in the county, and his secession with his 
friend Mr. Harding from the Eagle to the Sun in 1882 had much 
to do with the rejuvenation of the latter paper. He was a popu- 
lar figure in town life and especially in Grand Army circles. 
On March thirtieth, 1896, he died at Pittsfield. 

Theodore L. Allen, now the president of the company, suc- 
ceeded Mr. Mink in 1896, and has since served continuously with 
the exception of a few months when Oliver W. Robbins was presi- 



NEWSPAPERS 307 

dent. Major Charles T. Plunkett was treasurer and business 
manager from 1896 to 1899, and was followed in those offices by 
S. Chester Lyon, who was able to assume also many editorial 
duties. Mr. Lyon withdrew from the employment of the com- 
pany when the publication of the newspaper ceased. Among 
other valuable assistants to Mr. Harding in the editorial room 
was Henry T. Mills, who worked therein from 1888 to 1893. 

The Sun's Republican antagonist, the Berkshire County Eagle, 
was printed in 1876 in the Noble building, on the east corner of 
West Street and Clapp Avenue. It was a paper of four huge 
pages, each page being nine columns in width and measuring in 
length thirty inches. The proprietors, both of whom edited the 
Eagle more or less actively, were Henry Chickering and William 
D. Axtell. This firm had owned the paper since 1865. In 1876 
the Eagle seems to have been more alert and more informative of 
local occurrences than was the Sun of the same period; but like 
the Sun it was an important wheel in the county machinery of its 
political party. One of the proprietors, Mr. Chickering, had 
been postmaster of Pittsfield since 1861, when he succeeded in 
that position his rival editor, Phineas Allen, 2nd, of the Sun; 
and he was at all times influential among Republicans in the 
western section of the state. 

Henry Chickering died in Pittsfield, March fifth, 1881. He 
was born at Woburn, Massachusetts, September third, 1819, and 
in 1855 came to Pittsfield from North Adams, where he had 
owned and conducted the Transcript, and whence he had been 
elected to the governor's council in 1852. An astute and ener- 
getic politician and identified with the Republican party since its 
formation in Massachusetts, he believed that the Eagle, in 
which he first bought an interest in 1853, should be primarily a 
partisan organ. He continued to be the town's postmaster 
from 1861 until his death. 

After Mr. Chickering's death his interest in the Eagle was 
acquired by William M. Pomeroy, who remained Mr. Axtell's 
partner until March first, 1883, when he was succeeded by John 
B. Haskins. On December first, 1885, Mr. Axtell bought out 
Mr. Haskins, and became sole owner of the concern. 

In the meantime the Eagle's establishment had been weaken- 



308 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

ed by the withdrawal of James Harding and Wilham Mink, the 
reorganized Sun had become a vigorous competitor, and the re- 
cently launched daily, the Evening Journal, was slowly gaining 
strength. Mr. Axtell was an unusually excellent printer, but he 
was neither by inclination nor by regular experience an editor. 
Under his ownership of the Eagle, much, although not all, of the 
editorial work was entrusted to other hands, which appear not 
to have been uniformly vigorous. When he died, the paper was 
little other than an unprofitable load upon a well-conducted job 
printing shop. 

William D. Axtell was born at Westhampton, Massachusetts, 
July twenty-second, 1820, and his death occurred at Pittsfield, 
March twenty-fifth, 1887. He came there in 1842, with the 
Massachusetts Eagle, which was then removed from Lenox, and 
he remained in Pittsfield until 1853, conducting for a part of the 
time an independent printing office of extremely high merit. In 
1853 Mr. Axtell went to Northampton to be foreman of the 
printing plant of the Hampshire Gazette, and in 1865 returned to 
Pittsfield as a partner of Henry Chickering in the ownership of 
the Berkshire County Eagle. He was a man of soberly old-fashioned 
and quiet literary tastes, with an old-fashioned respect for the 
art of printing, in which he had made himself extraordinarily 
proficient. 

The issue of the Eagle of May nineteenth, 1887, announced 
that the property had been sold by the administrator of Mr. 
Axtell's estate to Marcus H. Rogers, whose name was not un- 
familiar to Berkshire newspaper readers. He had conducted 
the Berkshire Courier in Great Barrington from 1865 to 1879, and 
was known to be a progressive and capable editor. Signs of this 
were soon perceptible in the appearance of the Eagle, as well as in 
its contents. New machinery and new type were installed, and 
the antiquated blanket sheet of four pages was abandoned and 
replaced, with the issue of January fifth, 1888, by a more conven- 
ient format of eight, smaller, seven-column pages. By these 
alterations the paper was greatly improved, but the new owner 
remained in control hardly long enough to take advantage of 
them. In February, 1889, he sold the Eagle to Moses Y. Beach, 
of New York. 



NEWSPAPERS 309 

Mr. Beach, who had obtained his newspaper training on the 
New York Tribune under Whitelaw Reid, continued as editor 
and proprietor of the Eagle until 1891. In the issue of March 
nineteenth of that year announcement was made that the paper 
had been bought by A. A. Hill and F. A. Howard, formerly of 
the Haverhill Gazette, and Kelton B. Miller and Samuel Dodge of 
Pittsfield. Of the Eagle Publishing Company, then incorporated, 
the president was Mr. Miller and the secretary and treasurer was 
Mr. Howard. 

The publication of a daily edition of the Eagle, with tele- 
graphic news, had perhaps been contemplated by Mr. Beach, who 
at all events perceived that Pittsfield had outgrown the sort of 
country weekly which his newspaper represented and had bent 
effort to impart to it something of a more cosmopolitan tone. 
His successor, the Eagle Publishing Company, was soon able to 
complete the transformation. The first number of the Berkshire 
Evening Eagle was published on May ninth, 1892. It was a four- 
page, daily paper, and subscribers to the weekly were informed 
that on Wednesdays they would be supplied with an eight-page 
edition bearing the former name and presenting, as theretofore, 
the news of other towns in the county. The paper remained 
politically Republican. 

After 1892, the Eagle, in equipment of service, kept pace ju- 
diciously with the rapid growth of Pittsfield. In 1893 its 
quarters were removed from West Street to a new building 
erected for it on the south side of Cottage Row, and on July 
thirty-first of that year it was printed in a six-page form. In 
1904 it occupied another new building which had been provided 
for it, and for the Eagle Printing and Binding Company, on the 
north side of Cottage Row, wherein the newspaper has been 
since equipped from time to time with the more important and 
improved facilities of a metropolitan daily and has been so de- 
veloped as to serve the community to great and steady advan- 
tage. In 1915 the regular edition contained eighteen pages. 

Until 1897 the duties of chief editor of the Evening Eagle were 
performed by S. Chester Lyon and since that year they have 
been assumed by the president of the Eagle Publishing Company, 
Kelton B. Miller; prominently connected with the editorial staff 
have been Dennis J. Haylon and Joseph Hollister. 



310 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

When a daily edition was added to the weekly Eagle in 1892, 
another daily newspaper had been in course of publication in 
Pittsfield for twelve years. Nathaniel C. Fowler, Jr., established 
the Evening Journal in Pittsfield in 1880 and issued his first num- 
ber on September twenty-seventh, antedating any daily in 
Massachusetts west of the Connecticut. Mr. Fowler's enter- 
prise, indeed, may be said to have antedated its opportunity, for 
the conservative and not very prosperous town of 1880 afforded 
a hazardous field for the exploitation of a daily paper. Never- 
theless, he broke ground bravely. The original Evening Journal 
was a four page sheet, with seven columns to the page; the 
price was three cents and the advertising rate was six dollars a 
column. Editorial offices and press room were in the building 
on the north corner of Fenn and North Streets. 

The Journal under Mr. Fowler was Republican in politics, 
but it declared in its first number that "it will endeavor to be 
fair while being forcible, so that no one can charge it with that 
growingly dangerous course, unthinking and uncaring partisan- 
ship." Newspaper fashions were changing. It is not likely 
that a Pittsfield paper of an earlier era would have considered it 
expedient to emphasize a declaration of that sort. 

Mr. Fowler relinquished the Journal in less than a year after 
he founded it, and sold it to a small stock company of young local 
Republicans, who obtained the editorial services of I. Chipman 
Smart. Mr. Smart, in later years the brilliant pastor of the 
South Congregational Church, became editor of the Journal on 
August third, 1881, and his talent gave distinction to the leading 
articles of the paper. The stock company, however, sold the 
Journal in 1883 to J. M. Whitman and Frank D. Mills, who took 
possession on March twelfth of that year and assumed the edi- 
torial direction. They published also for a few months a periodi- 
cal called the Weekly Gazette, which contained a department 
written by Miss Anna L. Dawes. On November twenty-fourth, 
1883, the suspension of the Journal was announced. The sus- 
pension was continued for a month; and the next number of the 
Journal was issued on December twenty-second, under the editor- 
ship and ownership of Joseph E. See. 

The headquarters of the Journal, meanwhile, had been re- 



NEWSPAPERS Sll 

moved in February, 1883, to the Burbank building on the west 
side of North Street, next south of Central Block; in 1885 the 
editorial rooms were transferred to the latter building. There 
Mr. See caused the Journal at length to thrive. He owned and 
edited the paper for six years. During that period he enlarged it 
three times, although he retained the four-page form; and he 
added a weekly edition in 1886. Mr. See's good results with the 
Journal appear to have been attained mainly by commendable at- 
tention to business detail. On October fifteenth, 1889, Mr. See 
announced that he had sold his establishment to Ward Lewis of 
Great Barrington. 

Mr. Lewis was well-known in Berkshire as a Democratic 
county commissioner, and the Journal by his purchase became a 
Democratic organ. Its new editor in 1889 was the proprietor's 
son, J. Ward Lewis, who then came to Pittsfield from Connecti- 
cut, where he had served on the Middletown Herald. The 
Journal was published successfully under this ownership until 
1897. The Journal Printing Company appears as the proprietor 
in 1893, but of that corporation Ward Lewis was the controlling 
owner. The paper was increased in size to six pages in 1891, and 
its price was reduced to two cents in 1889 and to one cent in 
1893, but was fixed again at two cents in 1897. 

The Pittsfield Journal Company, a corporation organized in 
1897, on April nineteenth of that year assumed ownership of the 
newspaper. This company was in efiFect a consolidation of the 
Journal Printing Company with the job printing establishment 
on West Street owned by George T. Denny. Mr. Denny was the 
first president, and was succeeded in 1907 by Carey S. Hayward. 
Freeman M. Miller, who for twelve years had been connected 
with either the editorial or the business staff of the Journal Print- 
ing Company, was the treasurer. J. Ward Lewis, having served 
as editor of the Journal since October, 1889, resigned the editor- 
ship in February, 1898, and Freeman M. Miller then undertook 
the direction of the editorial columns and S. Chester Lyon that of 
the news department. Mr. Lyon withdrew shortly afterward to 
the Sun. Carey S. Hayward, who had been the Pittsfield cor- 
respondent of the Springfield Union, became city editor of the 
Journal in 1902., The Journal moved its establishment from 



312 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

Central Block to quarters at 70 West Street in 1899, and there it 
maintained itself until January, 1916, publishing in ordinary- 
editions eight pages. 

A third daily newspaper was so actively projected in Pittsfield 
in 1915 that a building was erected especially for its use on the 
north side of Melville Street. The proposed paper, however, was 
never published, and in November, 1915, the Journal announced 
that the Journal Company had effected an absorption of the 
ownership of the Melville Street concern, that the reorganized 
corporation, called the Pittsfield Publishing Company, would 
issue a new afternoon publication bearing the name of the Daily 
News, and that the Evening Journal would thereupon be discon- 
tinued. This plan was duly executed. The final number of the 
Evening Journal was issued on January eighth, 1916, and the first 
number of the Daily News, a sheet of eight pages, on January 
tenth. Of the new corporation, with its plant and editorial 
offices in the Melville Street building, the president was Freeman 
M. Miller, who was also managing editor, and the treasurer was 
Charles W. Power. 

To the three publications existent in Pittsfield in 1888 was 
added a fourth in the summer of that year, when William H. 
Phillips, formerly of the Sun, established a weekly paper, issued 
on Saturdays and called The Berkshire Hills. It endured the 
slings of fortune for only a few months; and its plant was then 
acquired by Hiram T. Oatman and his brother, William J. Oat- 
man, who in December, 1888, stirred the town not a little by 
offering to the community a Sunday newspaper, the Sunday 
Morning Call. Under the Oatmans the Sunday Morning Call 
was a sheet usually of twelve pages and during the greater part of 
its career it had its home on Cottage Row. Its policy was bold, 
aggressive, and judged often to be sensational by the Pittsfield 
of its time. Its managing editor for its first five years was 
Hiram T. Oatman. 

Mr. Oatman was born in Hartford, New York, in 1844, and 
died at Pittsfield, December twenty-seventh, 1901. He was not 
only an instinctive news-gatherer of the most assiduous and 
faithful industry, but also a capable printer and an expert stenog- 
rapher, serving the Commonwealth in the last-named capacity as 



NEWSPAPERS 313 

the first oflScial court reporter in Berkshire. Unsparing loyalty 
to his employment was his conspicuous trait; afflicted by blind- 
ness in his later years he clung manfully to his profession of 
journalist. Mr. Oatman was closely identified with Pittsfield 
newspaper life after 1874, and was probably best known as the 
local correspondent of the Springfield Republican. 

Shortly after the retirement of Hiram T. Oatman from the 
active editorship of the Sunday Morning Call, the position was 
filled by Walter M. Fernald, who came to the Call from the 
Springfield Union and left it after ten years to edit the Ansonia 
Sentinel in Connecticut. William J. Oatman, the publisher of 
the Call, in 1896 launched a daily edition christened the Morning 
Call. This remained above water for about ten months, and 
then sank from sight; another daily, the Evening Times, set 
afloat by Mr. Oatman in 1906, had a voyage even less pro- 
longed. In September, 1906, he sold his newspaper establish- 
ment to the firm of Hamer and Osborne. 

The new owners continued the publication of the Sunday 
Call, and with some fortitude again added a daily, entitled the 
Morning Press, to the output of the plant. Their enterprise 
survived for five months. Both the Sunday Morning Call and 
the Morning Press were then discontinued, in 1907, and the me- 
chanical equipment was removed from the city. 

The Berkshire Sunday Record began publication in Pittsfield 
on June eighteenth, 1893, An eight-page sheet of dignified ap- 
pearance, it was in make-up and in the general nature of its con- 
tents almost a replica of the Sun, perhaps because one of its edi- 
tors, Henry T. Mills, had done service for half a dozen years 
under James Harding on the older paper. The owner of the 
Record was the Record Publishing Company, of which the chief, 
if not the sole, components were Mr. Mills and his brother, Frank 
D. Mills, the latter being a vivacious newspaper man of varied 
local experience. The Record was not a financial success and it 
expired with the issue of March twenty-sixth, 1896. Its files 
are now of antiquarian value because of the series of portraits 
of Pittsfield citizens which it published. Henry T. Mills, who 
himself wrote most of the contents of the paper, was too nicely 
literary, it may have been, for the field of popular journalism, 



314 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

and the Record appears to have lacked a definite and clean-cut 
editorial policy in dealing with local affairs, to which it exclu- 
sively devoted itself. 

About a year after the demise of the Record, another weekly 
appeared, the Saturday Blade. It was edited and published by 
H. T. Oatman and S. Chester Lyon, and its career was limited to 
four months of the summer and autumn of 1897. The name of 
the Sunday Morning Call was revived in 1912 by Isaac H. Potter, 
who applied it to a Sunday paper which he began then to publish 
and which he discontinued in 1915. Lenox Life, a weekly aiming 
to be of interest to the summer visitors in Berkshire, was issued 
in Pittsfield for a few seasons commencing in 1897 by Earl G. 
Baldwin. It was succeeded in its field by Berkshire Resort 
Topics in 1903, and this periodical was afterwards absorbed by 
the Sun. 

Two salient features characterize the history of the last forty 
years of Pittsfield newspapers. One of them is the elimination 
of the weekly, unsupported by a daily edition. The Sun in its 
old age was obviously kept alive so long only by the unique talent 
and personality of James Harding; the Eagle was no doubt 
saved by its expansion to a daily paper; of the various independ- 
ent Sunday journals none now survives. The other feature is 
the growth of the notion that a newspaper is more properly a 
servant of the public than the political agent of one man or of a 
group of men. The two Phineas Aliens and their immediate 
successors in the editorship of the Sun had worthy ambitions to 
be elected to political office, and they worthily attained that ob- 
ject; Henry Chickering of the Eagle was essentially a politician 
and for twenty years held a political appointment with credit. 
But by these facts their respective newspapers were inevitably 
affected, not only in the editorial columns but in the news de- 
partments. The conduct of the Pittsfield press gave evidence 
of a broadening change in this respect about the time of the es- 
tablishment in 1880 of the Evening Journal. 

The products of Pittsfield publishing have included a singular 
monthly periodical. The Berkshire Hills, edited and first issued 
in 1900 by William H. Phillips, who used for it the name given to 
his short-lived weekly of 1888. The second Berkshire Hills was 



NEWSPAPERS 315 

published by Mr. Phillips, and mostly written by him, from 1900 
until 1906; after October, 1904, it was a quarterly publication. 
Its purpose, which it pleasantly fulfilled, was the preservation of 
the county's traditions and ancient gossip, the sort of harmless 
gossip, often delightfully inaccurate, which used to be familiar 
of old in Berkshire country stores, and crossroad blacksmith 
shops, and the offices of village lawyers. 

The first meeting of a formal character of the county's news- 
paper men was in October, 1878, when a dozen of them regaled 
their guests and themselves with a dinner in Pittsfield, listened 
to speeches of humorous advice from Francis W. Rockwell and 
William R. Plunkett, and read letters of regret for non-attendance 
from the President of the United States and other dignitaries. 
As a result of this dinner appears to have been formed a nebulous 
Press Club, but for long periods its activities were wholly invis- 
ible. The city's newspaper workers in 1909, however, formed a 
social organization under the curious title of the Dope Club, 
which has since had a prosperous career, holding regular meetings 
of mutual benefit and occasionally exhilirating the community 
by novel entertainments. 

Among workers for the local press in Pittsfield during the last 
half -century, the most distinguished writer was Joseph E. A. 
Smith. He was, to be sure, a poet, an historian, and a man of 
letters, rather than solely a journalist, but from about the year 
1850 until his death the columns of Pittsfield's newspapers were 
enriched by his labor and during most of that time he was con- 
strained to derive a livelihood from newspaper employment. 
It is not improper, then, to conclude this chapter with an account 
of him and of his great service to the town and city. 

Joseph Edward Adams Smith was born at Portsmouth, New 
Hampshire, February fourth, 1822. He went to Bowdoin Col- 
lege and he studied law, but his ambitions both of an academic 
and a legal education were abandoned because of ill health. 
In 1847 his father was engaged in building iron works at Lanes- 
borough, and in 1848 Mr. Smith the elder removed his family to 
Pittsfield. Thither came also the son Joseph, a handsome, 
romantic youth, who could already claim to be a professional 
author. His verses had been printed in Boston magazines and 



316 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

his lyrics had been set to music for the songbooks of that era — 
those "Vocal Garlands" and "Wreaths of Melody", whose prim 
fragrance enraptured the singing schools of the middle century. 

The spirit of the hills possessed the young poet immediately. 
He began at once, both in prose and verse, to write about Berk- 
shire for his Boston editors. In 1852 he collected many of these 
productions in a volume which was published under the title of 
"Taghconic, the Romance and Beauty of the Hills". Mr. 
Smith adopted as its author the pen name of Godfrey Greylock, 
with which he customarily signed his magazine contributions. 
The book enjoyed a comfortable sale and the praise of dis- 
tinguished critics. Godfrey Greylock became the laureate of 
Berkshire. The literary lights, who at times then illuminated 
the county, welcomed him to a modest place in their constella- 
tion. Dr. Holmes extended to him a genial right hand of fellow- 
ship, the formidable Fanny Kemble patronized him majestically, 
and with the novelist, Herman Melville, he formed a close in- 
timacy. In 1854 Mr. Smith assumed under Henry Chickering the 
editorship of the Berkshire County Eagle and held it until 1865. 
In September, 1866, he began to write his "History of Pittsfield". 

The work owed its inception to a speech made in town 
meeting by Thomas Allen, and the town in August, 1866, voted 
its first appropriation for the cost of preparing a local history, 
to be expended by a committee headed by Thomas Colt. To 
this task, under the general direction of the town's committee, 
Mr. Smith devoted nine laborious years. His first volume was 
published in 1869, his second in 1876. In Pittsfield homes the 
books shall always be his honored monument. 

The "History of Pittsfield" is, of course, the chief product of 
Mr. Smith's talent and industry, but he made valuable historical 
and biographical contributions to many works, notably to the 
"History of Berkshire", published in 1885. He published in 
Pittsfield in 1895 a little volume which he called "Souvenir 
Verse and Story", and somewhat earlier a brochure of Berkshire 
reminiscences of Oliver Wendell Holmes, entitled "The Poet 
Among the Hills". His pen found frequent employment in the 
local press, because of his peculiar knowledge of local men and 
affairs. On October twenty-ninth, 1896, he died at Pittsfield. 



NEWSPAPERS 317 

His old age was shadowed by care and poverty, for in business 
affairs he was an infant, and he was at the last a somewhat pa- 
thetic figure — bent, gray-faced, moving absent-mindedly through 
the streets with a little basket of books and papers on his trem- 
bling arm. Everybody in Berkshire knew him but he had few 
intimates, and these discovered in him strange, harmless pecul- 
iarities of social and religious belief. A sweetly-tempered and 
courteous man, he could be excited to surprising wrath by that 
which he judged to be bigotry or injustice; nevertheless in what 
he wrote there was never harshness, and he was by mental habit 
a searcher for the best in humankind. To the loveliness of na- 
ture he responded as if to music, and in his last years he retained 
for it the passionate affection of his youth. The grateful hills of 
Berkshire can smile upon no man's grave more tenderly than 
upon his. 



CHAPTER XXII 
CLUBS, THEATERS AND HOTELS 

THE tendency toward increased organization, characteristic 
of American life during the later years of the nineteenth 
century, was remarkably operative in Pittsfield. The 
number of local branches of secret and fraternal orders, for ex- 
ample, was multiplied to an extent out of proportion to the gain 
in population. A list in the directory of 1876 names seven socie- 
ties of this description in the town; a corresponding list in the city 
directory of 1915 enumerates forty-six. Several of the fraternal 
orders, and the Turn Verein Germania, had buildings of their 
own. That of the Pittsfield lodge of Elks was opened on Union 
Street in 1910. On South Street the Masonic Temple was built 
in 1912, at a construction cost of about $50,000, and devoted to 
the uses of the Masonic fraternity. The Pittsfield branch of the 
order of Eagles dedicated their building on First Street in 1915. 
Having indicated briefly the growth and success in the city 
of secret societies which are component parts of nation-wide, or 
indeed of world-wide, organizations, this book cannot, it seems, 
with propriety attempt to deal with the intimate and detailed 
history of their local development and activities. Some of the 
city's social clubs, however, may here claim notice. 

The formation of the Business Men's Association was prob- 
ably suggested and certainly hastened by the availability in 1881 
of good rooms in the then newly-built Central Block on North 
Street, opposite the Baptist Church. In the fall of that year, 
preliminary meetings were held, and ninety-nine members were 
obtained. Formal organization was effected on March twenty- 
third, 1882, four connecting rooms having been hired and furnish- 
ed in the southeast corner of the second floor of the new block. 
Games of any character were interdicted; and it otherwise ap- 
pears that the founders were at first torn in their minds as to 



CLUBS, THEATERS AND HOTELS 319 

whether their establishment was that of a club or of a more sedate 
and seriously purposed chamber of commerce. The club notion 
prevailed, not altogether without difficulty. The diversions of 
cards and billiards were officially provided in 1883, and thereafter 
three rooms were added to the quarters of the association. Its 
home in the Central Block was occupied by the Business Men's 
Association for fourteen years. 

Early in 1896 the corporate name was changed to "The Park 
Club of Pittsfield, Massachusetts", and in May of the same year a 
removal was made to the block on the corner of North Street and 
Park Square, then of recent construction by the Berkshire County 
Savings Bank. There the club, having gained greatly in mem- 
bership, occupied the whole of the third floor. A second migra- 
tion was accomplished in December, 1911, when the club dedi- 
cated its present rooms, to which is devoted the fifth floor of the 
building of the Berkshire Life Insurance Company. These 
rooms were designed specially for club purposes, including those 
of a restaurant, and there the club was for the first time in its 
history completely equipped, according to metropolitan stand- 
ards. The membership in 1915 was about 400. 

The presidents of the organization, which has represented 
Pittsfield citizenship more broadly and for a longer period than 
any similar body, have been, since 1882, John R. Warriner, 
James M. Barker, Francis E. Kernochan, William H. Sloan, 
Edward T. Slocum, Thomas A. Oman, Frank W. Hinsdale, 
John F. Noxon, Irving D. Ferrey, Charles H. Wright, George W. 
Bailey, Arthur W. Eaton, Frank E. Peirson, and William D. 
Wyman. The social function of the club has been emphasized 
beyond the intention, doubtless, of many of its founders, but not 
by any means to the exclusion of other functions; a forum is 
afforded for the discussion of public problems; and at the Wash- 
ington's Birthday dinners of the club, initiated in 1915, dis- 
tinguished orators have taught lessons of patriotic duty. 

The Country Club of Pittsfield was formed in the early 
spring of 1897, and owed its inception to the desire of several 
men and women of the city to familiarize themselves with the 
game of golf. The first president was Dr. Henry Colt. Land 
was rented sufficient for a nine-hole course immediately south- 



320 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

west of the junction of Dawes Avenue and Holmes Road, and 
there the club was opened in July, 1897, a small cottage having 
been converted to the uses of a clubhouse. The club had so 
pleasant an effect upon social life that considerable expansion 
was warranted. In 1899 the fortunate purchase was made by 
the club of the beautiful, uplying, tract of land of 230 acres on 
lower South Street, then known as the Morewood estate. Upon 
this land stood, nearly as originally built by Henry Van Schaak in 
1781, the historic mansion called "Broadhall", the home of Elka- 
nah Wiatson, of Thomas Melville, and of John R. Morewood, 
wherein, while it was utilized as a summer boarding house, 
Henry W. Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Mel- 
ville had been guests. In 1900, when the Country Club first 
occupied Broadhall, it was necessary to alter the house only 
slightly; but subsequent additions have greatly enlarged it. 
The members of the club organized an incorporated stock com- 
pany for the purpose of acquiring and improving the house and 
land. 

The exceptional possibilities of the property for the uses of a 
country club were steadily exploited. Tennis courts and a base- 
ball diamond were laid out; and in 1915 steps were taken to 
change the golf course of nine holes to one of eighteen. A boat- 
house and a bathhouse were placed on the shore of the lake. 
Roads and trails were cut through the picturesque woods. Out- 
of-door winter sports were provided. The spacious house, with 
its piazzas from which the fairest of views lie to the north and 
east, soon became a favorite center of recreation. The member- 
ship of the Country Club in 1915 was 425. 

The Pittsfield Boat Club was organized in September, 1898, and 
in June of the following year formally opened its first quarters, a 
pavilion which had been built by a previous tenant of land at 
the Point of Pines, on the southeastern shore of Pontoosuc Lake. 
The club, of which the membership in its first year was more than 
300, was incorporated in April, 1901. Its success had then been 
so firmly established that a new clubhouse was erected at the 
Point of Pines, in the summer of 1901, at a cost of about $3,000; 
in 1915 $4,600 was expended upon additions. As soon as the 
club was in operation, arrangements were made for the con- 







5 



CLUBS, THEATERS AND HOTELS 321 

venient keeping of private launches, canoes, and rowboats of 
the members, and the nucleus of a club fleet was formed. On 
an August evening in 1899, the club conducted its first boat pa- 
rade, with the accompaniment of fireworks and much elaborate 
illumination. 

By causing Pontoosuc Lake to be more attractive to the 
casual visitor, as well as to the summer resident on its shores, 
the Boat Club has been a protective factor of prime importance, 
for it has served to discourage the more or less tawdry places 
of entertainment which have threatened at times to disfigure 
the lake's natural beauties. Amid these beauties, the site of 
the clubhouse was admirably chosen; and the policy of the 
organization has been so developed as to afiford to its numerous 
members privileges beyond those usually afforded by clubs formed 
solely for boating. Frank E. Peirson was the first president, 
and his successors have been H. Neill Wilson, Henry A. Francis, 
Frank W. Brandow, and Charles H. Talbot. 

The Pittsfield Bicycle Club, the descendant of the Berkshire 
County Wheelmen, and organized in 1892 during the vogue of the 
bicycle, maintained enjoyable clubrooms on North Street in 1915. 
Another flourishing association of young men, the Shire City 
Club, occupied quarters in the building of the Berkshire Life 
Insurance Company after 1912. 

Founded in 1869, the Monday Evening Club survives as the 
dean of Pittsfield's literary societies, meeting for the reading of 
papers and informal discussion. Among the twenty-one original 
members were John Todd, Gen. William Francis Bartlett, 
Henry L. Dawes, and Thomas F. Plunkett. Although the mem- 
bership continued to be somewhat rigorously restricted, the 
Monday Evening Club not only quickened the community's 
intellectual life, but also tended quietly to preserve a spirit of 
civic patriotism, and contributed toward establishing that out- 
spoken, appreciative acquaintance with one another which char- 
acterized Pittsfield's leading men in the days of the smaller town. 
The Wednesday Morning Club, a large and valuable association 
of Pittsfield women, began its course in 1879. The president 
since its formation has been Miss Anna L. Dawes; and invita- 
tions to lecture before it have been accepted by many of the 
country's notables. 



322 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

The Pittsfield Argus of March twenty-seventh, 1828, con- 
tained the following advertisement: "The Young Gentlemen 
of Pittsfield who are desirous of forming themselves into a Thes- 
pian Association are requested to meet at the town house on the 
evening of the third of April next". It is unlikely that public 
theatrical performances resulted. If they did, we may be fairly 
sure that they were not presented in the town house. Pittsfield's 
earliest theater was doubtless the "long room" or the "assembly 
room" in one of the taverns. Strolling players began to give 
dramatic entertainments of a sort in western New England soon 
after 1800; and John Bernard, the vivacious author and come- 
dian who assumed the management of a Boston theater in 1806, 
made an excursion with a company of three or four actors in the 
summer of 1808 from Boston to Saratoga, gratifying the villagers 
in his path with a taste of his quality. It is not impossible that 
he tarried a night in Pittsfield, although his reminiscences do not 
record the visit. 

After the dissolution in 1817 of the Union Church, its meeting 
house on South Street was purchased by Lemuel Pomeroy and 
leased by him for divers purposes, sacred and profane. Stage 
entertainments were given there occasionally; and it is of record 
that there Rev. John Todd was moved to great and righteous 
wrath one evening in 1844, when he entered the hall to conduct 
a prayer meeting and found the platform adorned by the scenery 
and wardrobe of "The Reformed Drunkard", a drama in course of 
production for the rest of the week by a traveling company. 
West's Hall, on the third floor of the block at the corner of North 
Street and Park Square, succeeded the South Street "lecture 
room" in 1850 as the town's resort for musical and theatrical di- 
version, and Burbank's Hall on the west side of lower North 
Street was similarly utilized. Adjoining the Burbank House on 
West Street, a second Burbank's Hall was dedicated on January 
nineteenth, 1871. This hall was provided with a permanent 
stage and scenery, and its seating capacity was about 1,000. 
The entertainments presented there were diversified in character, 
ranging in one season from a performance by a company of Indian 
scouts to readings by Harriet Beecher Stowe and a concert by 
Mme. Rudersdorff, the brilliant and eccentric mother of Richard 



CLUBS, THEATERS AND HOTELS 3«3 

Mansfield. In none of these halls was the equipment for dra- 
matic production better than primitive. 

The Academy of Music, built by Cebra Quackenbush on the 
east side of North Street a few rods south of the railroad, was 
dedicated December sixteenth, 1872. Its grandiose title was 
representative of a period in Massachusetts when the word 
"theater" was not savory, and when a theater was deemed to be 
less objectionable under the name of a museum, a melodeon, or 
an opera house. Mr. Quackenbush's brick block contained six 
stores on the street level. Above them were the stage and audi- 
torium. The designer was Louis Weissbein of Boston, who 
planned the court house, the jail, and the Berkshire Life Insur- 
ance Company's building, and who fastened the mansard roof 
upon local architecture with a pertinacious clutch. The corri- 
dors and lobbies of the Academy of Music were lavishly spacious, 
although the number of corners turned by the broad stairways 
was somewhat disquieting. Nevertheless, in provision for the 
comfort of its patrons, in completion of stage equipment, and in 
lighting and decoration, the theater was not excelled by any es- 
tablishment of the kind outside the larger American cities at the 
time of its erection. The seating capacity was announced to be 
1,200. 

The opening performance was that of the play "Leah, the 
Forsaken", presented by a company which remained for a week 
and was led by Maude St. Leone, otherwise not now discoverably 
known to fame. On that occasion, she read a rhymed dedica- 
tory address from the pen of Joseph E. A. Smith, concluding: 

"Lapped in soft luxuries, 'neath its gilded dome. 
Through the bright portals of its stage shall come 
To you the changeful drama's glittering train. 
The Houri's dance, the Songstress' thrilling strain." 

The "Houri's dance" was at once sufficiently in evidence, 
for no fewer than nine performances of "The Black Crook" 
edified the patrons of the theater during the Academy's first season. 

The Academy of Music was seldom financially profitable to 
its owner or lessees, and the "soft luxuries", with which its 
laureate had endowed it, softened in time beyond the point of 
perceptibility. Nevertheless, the Academy contributed in gen- 



324 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

erous measure to the wholesome enjoyment of the life of the 
town. During the first fifteen years or so of its existence, almost 
every actor of eminence in the country played there at least once, 
with the curious exception of Edwin Booth — curious because Mr. 
Booth was a good friend of Berkshire and a not infrequent visitor 
in a Pittsfield household. Of the theater in its earlier years, the 
community was with reason proud. Practical testimony of this 
was given when a gale blew in the north wall of the Academy, in 
1877. A subscription paper was circulated for the benefit of the 
proprietors, and local amateur actors arranged a benefit enter- 
tainment, for which Col. Walter Cutting, John M. Ready, and 
others presented themselves in "Betsey Baker" and "Paddy, the 
Piper". 

It is as the scene of the elaborate balls of the volunteer fire 
companies, of public meetings, political rallies, high school gradu- 
ations, that the Academy of Music is most closely, perhaps, in- 
tertwined with Pittsfield's memories; and in 1891 the Academy 
was the scene of the most important event in Pittsfield's civic 
history in the past forty years — the formal dissolution of the 
ancient town government. 

The final dramatic production on the Academy's stage was 
made on December twelfth, 1903. The name of the piece then 
presented, "The Struggle for Liberty", was not without a certain 
appropriateness, for the veteran theater had been for several 
months engaged vigorously in a struggle of its own. New 
ground floor playhouses had been recently opened on Summer 
Street and South Street. The municipal authorities and the 
Academy's proprietor had annually been at variance over the 
safeguarding of the theater's patrons in case of fire; its license 
had been suspended in 1902, while alterations were in progress; 
and although these alterations were duly effected, general con- 
fidence in the safety of the auditorium was not completely re- 
stored. In 1904 the stage and its appurtenances were removed 
and the floor of the auditorium was leveled. The Academy was 
then reopened as a public hall and a theater for the display of 
moving pictures, entitled "The World in Motion". For a short 
period, beginning in 1905, the armory of Company F, the local 
company of state militia, was there established. The disastrous 



CLUBS, THEATERS AND HOTELS 325 

fire which destroyed the building in January, 1912, has been des- 
cribed elsewhere. 

Pittsfield's first ground floor theater was built in 1898 by 
George Burbank on the south side of Summer Street, a short 
distance from North Street, and was at first called "The Casino". 
The floor of the auditorium was not pitched and the Casino was 
therefore usable otherwise than as a theater; but theatrical per- 
formances of merit were occasionally given there until 1902. 
The stage was then dismantled and the Casino became the head- 
quarters of the fraternal order of Eagles. In 1906 the hall was 
refitted as a theater, with a sloping floor, a permanent stage, and 
suitable scenic equipment, and under the name of "The Em- 
pire" began a well-conducted career as a vaudeville house, where- 
in entertainments were offered every night. This policy of the 
Empire was altered early in the spring of 1912, when the manage- 
ment of the theater organized a permanent stock company of 
actors and produced a different play each week; and this was 
the first trial of a dramatic experiment of that sort in the city. 
In 1913 this enterprise was abandoned, the theater changed 
hands, and, having been rechristened "The Grand", experienced 
a variety of vicissitudes. In 1915 it was a moving picture es- 
tablishment. 

The erection of the Colonial Theater on South Street was not 
accomplished by Pittsfield capital. The investors were John 
Sullivan and his brothers of North Adams, and the architect was 
Joseph McA. Vance of Pittsfield. The audience assembled there 
on September twenty-eighth, 1903, to witness the dedicatory 
performance — "Robin Hood", by a famous operatic company 
called "The Bostonians" — was able to congratulate the com- 
munity upon the possession of a handsome, comfortable, and 
modernly equipped playhouse. The Colonial was conducted by 
its first owners for eight years, and an endeavor was made to 
obtain the best theatrical attractions available for smaller cities; 
but by no means so large a proportion of the leaders of the con- 
temporary American stage was seen at the Colonial during its 
earlier days as was seen at the Academy of Music twenty or 
thirty years before. Pittsfield, of course, was only one of 
hundreds of towns and cities thus to be deprived. The reason 



326 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

was mainly, perhaps, the enormous commercial and numerical 
expansion of theaters in the great metropolitan centers. 

In December, 1911, the Messrs. Sullivan sold the Colonial 
to the Pittsfield Theater Company, a corporation of which the 
capital stock was held by about fifty local shareholders. These 
owners had no radical ideas concerning the conduct of a theater; 
but a circular letter, addressed by the executive committee to 
hundreds of prominent actors and dramatic critics and asking 
for their advice, aroused widely published comment; and soon 
the company's directorate, to its surprise and perhaps to its dis- 
may, found itself credited with an ambition to establish a mu- 
nicipal theater, and in general to elevate the American drama. 

The Colonial, having been decorated anew and supplied 
with new stage equipment, was reopened on May twenty-eighth, 
1912. Thereafter a resident dramatic company, directed by 
William Parke, occupied its stage practically every night until 
the summer of 1913. The plays, changed each week, included 
some of the comedies of Shakespeare and Sheridan, and some of 
those of such modern authors as Pinero and Bernard Shaw. 
Local interest in acted drama was greatly stimulated. But the 
undertaking, despite artistic supervision, laborious effort, and 
the co-operation of many citizens, did not support itself. Mr. 
Parke withdrew, and the summer season of 1913 was completed 
by a stock company under another management. 

Stock companies were seen at the Colonial also during the 
summers of 1914 and 1915, while in the intervening winter the 
theater was devoted to moving pictures and traveling organiza- 
tions. In the early autumn of the latter year, the Colonial was 
sold to the Goldstein Brothers Amusement Company, of Spring- 
field, Massachusetts, by the Pittsfield Theater Company, upon 
whose boards of directors had served William H. Eaton, Charles 
W. Wilson, Luke J. Minahan, Daniel England, Charles W. 
Power, Edward Boltwood, Joseph McA. Vance, F. W. Dutton, 
Edward A. Jones, and Franklin Weston. 

The tenancies of the Colonial's stage by the different stock 
companies of actors who occupied it, beginning in 1912, were 
productive not only of generally adequate and often excellent 
theatrical entertainment at reasonable prices. Another effect 



CLUBS, THEATERS AND HOTELS 327 

is believed to have been to form a sort of concept in the 
popular mind of the possibilities, at least, of a theater for the 
acted drama which might constitute a rational share of the ordi- 
nary social life of the community. This is not, of course, to say 
that the brief control of the Colonial by a local corporation pro- 
vided such a theater or anything very closely approaching one. 
It is likely, however, that many Pittsfield people, whose mental 
attitude toward all theaters had become one of indifference or 
suspicion, began between 1912 and 1915 to regard the activities 
of a playhouse with an interest more friendly, appreciative, and 
discriminating. 

The Majestic Theater was built on the east side of North 
Street by the Messrs. Sullivan, who had erected the Colonial, 
and it was opened November twenty-third, 1910. The architect 
was Joseph McA. Vance of Pittsfield. On the opening night a 
play called "The Deserters" was presented by a company of 
which Helen Ware was the leader; but the Majestic has since 
been devoted to vaudeville entertainment and moving pictures. 
A similar policy was followed by the Union Square Theater, built 
on Union Street by John F. Cooney of Pittsfield and opened in 
1912. The vogue of moving pictures, indeed, was as popular 
during this period in Pittsfield as everywhere in the country; 
and, besides those which have been named, several other moving 
picture establishments on North Street and on Tyler Street were 
patronized. 

It is quite apparent that for several years following 1876 the 
quality of Pittsfield's hotel accommodation was not satisfactory 
to the townspeople, but several attempts to organize a local cor- 
poration to build a new hotel resulted in nothing but a tangle of 
discussion. The principal hotels in town were the American 
House, the Burbank Hotel on West Street near the railroad sta- 
tion, and the Berkshire House on Summer Street. Of these 
buildings, all of which were wooden, the oldest was the American 
House. The American House had been purchased in 1865 by 
Cebra Quackenbush and personally conducted by him until 1876. 
Mr. Quackenbush in that year removed his residence from Pitts- 
field and rented the hotel to various landlords, including George 
H. Gale, A. A. Jones, N. H. Peakes, William St. Lawrence, and 



328 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

finally in 1889 to the present successful lessees, Arthur W. Plumb 
and George W. Clark, the house having been enlarged in 1888. 
The wooden portion on North Street was replaced in 1899 by the 
New American House of today, a substantial structure of brick, 
which was remodeled by Mr. Quackenbush in 1911 and so im- 
proved in equipment as to be adequate to the demands of modern 
hotel-keeping. 

Cebra Quackenbush was born at Hoosick, New York, in 1838 
and died on February sixteenth, 1914. His association with 
Pittsfield was useful to it, for he was a man of a pushing, service- 
able sort, and when he built the Academy of Music and the New 
American House he added to the public advantages of town and 
city. After leaving Pittsfield in 1876, he assumed the manage- 
ment for a long period of Stanwix Hall, a hotel in Albany. It 
appeared, however, that he retained his sentimental, as well as 
his proprietary, interest in his Pittsfield enterprises, and he con- 
tinued to be a familiar and popular figure locally, although no 
longer a resident. 

The Burbank Hotel on the south side of West Street, near 
the railroad, was opened in 1871 and razed in 1911. Until his 
death, in 1887, the hotel was conducted by its builder and owner, 
Abraham Burbank, with the assistance of his sons, of whom 
Roland E. Burbank was the acting manager. The latter so 
served after his father's death, as did also T. L. Doyle, Ellsworth 
Bowers, W. P. F. Meserve, and John Quaid. The last proprietor 
and landlord of the Burbank Hotel was Henry Hay, who under- 
took the management of the hotel in 1904 and finally closed its 
doors in 1910. The house in its halcyon days was familiar to the 
traveler by rail, both because of its convenient location and be- 
cause of the faithful and unforgettable voice which for many 
years directed his attention across the way from the station plat- 
form. 

The Berkshire House on the south side of Summer Street, 
and not to be confused with the historic hotel of the same name 
which stood until 1868 on the corner of North and West Streets, 
was originally the dwelling house of Parker L. Hall, whose estate 
Abraham Burbank purchased in 1860. Subsequently he en- 
larged the dwelling and opened it as the Berkshire House. 



CLUBS, THEATERS AND HOTELS 329 

Some of its landlords, after 1876, were H. S. Munson, W. W. 
Perry, R. McKinney, and John Butterworth. The building was 
demolished preparatory to the erection by George Burbank in 
1898 of the Casino, now the Grand Theater, and of the New 
Burbank House, which in 1902 became the Norwood Hotel. 
The Berkshire House and its successors were hotels of which the 
policies were based on a schedule of moderate prices. There 
has seldom been any dearth of these in Pittsfield, but an attempt 
to inventory them would be a staggering task. The most con- 
spicuous example, perhaps, has been the present Kenney Hotel, 
opened on the west side of upper North Street in 1905, and 
which was a development from a modest restaurant called the 
Arlington. 

The desirability to the town of a hotel adapted specially to 
the accommodation of summer visitors was emphasized con- 
stantly for several years after 1876 by those interested in Pitts- 
field's welfare. Both the American House and the Burbank 
Hotel were conducted primarily to meet the needs of another 
sort of patronage, nor were the pleasant boarding houses at 
Springside of Mrs. Tetley and on South Street of Mrs. Viner and 
of Mrs. Backus quite adequate to the demand. The school 
buildings at Maplewood, in some seasons utilized for this pur- 
pose, had fallen into a state of dreary disrepair, from which their 
owners seemed unable or unwilling to extricate them. 

It was under these circumstances, in 1887, that Arthur W. 
Plumb of Stockbridge became lessee of the Maplewood buildings, 
and, in 1889, purchased the property from Oberlin College. Mr. 
Plumb's skilled and zealous efforts soon supplied the town with 
that sort of a summer hotel which Pittsfield had so long and detri- 
mentally lacked. By degrees the veteran school buildings were 
in effect reconstructed; capacious additions were made to them. 
Their graceful environment was protected and improved. Soon 
the city possessed the advantage of a uniquely attractive resort 
for summer guests, which in 1915 is still under the same careful 
and progressive management. 

The Hotel Wendell, opened at the corner of South and West 
Streets in the autumn of 1898, was the most pretentious hotel 
which Pittsfield had seen up to that time, and was, indeed, more 



330 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

pretentious than the size and character of the city then apparent- 
ly warranted. It was built and originally owned by Samuel W. 
Bowerman, a son of the distinguished local lawyer bearing the 
same name, and its architect was H. Neill Wilson of Pittsfield. 
The first management, that of a corporation called John P. 
Doyle and Company, in which Mr. Bowerman was heavily con- 
cerned, endured for about six months, and culminated in financial 
disaster. In 1899 Messrs. Plumb and Clark of the American 
House rented the Wendell and undertook its direction, the New 
American House being in that year in course of construction. 
The firm of Hamilton and Cunningham assumed the lease of the 
Wendell in 1900, and, the latter partner soon thereafter retiring, 
Mr. Hamilton conducted the hotel until 1905, when the tenancy 
of Luke J. Minahan commenced. Under that meritorious man- 
agement, the Wendell was actively successful, and in 1910 the 
hotel and a large amount of adjacent real estate were purchased 
by the Wendell Hotel Company, a corporation of which the stock 
was in Mr. Minahan's control and which conducted the hotel 
after his untimely death. 

Luke J. Minahan was a resident of Pittsfield for only eight 
years, but even in that brief period his peculiarly restless, opti- 
mistic energy found many opportunities to stimulate the general 
activity of the city and to cause its name to become known more 
widely and favorably. He was born in Troy, New York, in 1870 
and he died at Pittsfield, April seventeenth, 1913. He had quick, 
broad vision, brisk determination, large ideas, cheerful courage. 
His enthusiasms were showy and to the staidly minded often 
amusing, but they were none the less genuine, while his warm 
kindliness of heart made for him countless friends; and the 
success that he achieved with the Wendell, to which he devoted 
his energies without respite, contributed substantially to the 
prosperity of Pittsfield. 



CHAPTER XXIII 
PROMINENT CITIZENS 

IT has been found advisable to include biographical mention 
of certain influential citizens in previous chapters. The ob- 
ject of this chapter is to present brief biographies of other 
notable Pittsfield men, who died between 1891 and 1916. 

A record of the public services of John C. West belongs to the 
annals of the town prior to 1876, although he lived to see the 
rural village of his youth become a city. He was born in Wash- 
ington, Massachusetts, in 1811. His father was Abel West, 
who was, from 1817 to 1871, a farmer on West Street. John 
Chapman West, in 1839, opened a general store on the corner of 
North Street and Park Place, and continued in the business of 
merchant there for many years. He died in Pittsfield, November 
eighth, 1893. Mr. West was a factor of importance in the organi- 
zation and early management of the Pittsfield National Bank, as 
well as of the Berkshire Mutual Fire Insurance Company, and was 
always actively concerned in the affairs of the First Church. Be- 
fore the eyes of the community, however, he was chiefly con- 
spicuous in the character of a selectman. He was, indeed, almost 
a fixture in that office, holding it for twenty-two years and being 
for nineteen years chairman of the board, until he declined re- 
nomination in 1875. Thus he came to be a sort of incarnation 
of the town government; and, in theatrical phrase, he looked the 
part, for he was a full-figured man of both authoritative and 
benignant presence. The attention which he gave to town af- 
fairs was daily and particular, nor did he neglect, upon needful 
occasions, to check public disorder with his own formidable arm. 

George N. Dutton was a prominent and respected North 
Street merchant, and after 1875 the treasurer and manager of the 
Pittsfield Tack Company. He was born in 1828 at Newbury- 
port, Massachusetts, and died at Pittsfield, August eighteenth, 



332 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

1891. Mr. Dutton was one of the pioneer Republicans in Pitts- 
field in the ante-bellum days, and represented the town in the 
state legislature. From 1863 until his death he was an especially- 
zealous and devoted deacon of the First Church. 

Born in Stockport, New York, in 1824, David A. Clary came 
to Pittsfield to work as an apprentice in the machine shop of 
Gordon McKay, and in 1855 became a partner in the concern, 
associated with Almiron D, Francis. Mr. Clary retired from 
active business in 1872. He was a quiet, conservative man of 
excellent judgment, and his advice was valuable to several 
financial institutions, conspicuously to the Pittsfield National 
Bank, as well as to public and private enterprises. He was a 
member of the city's first board of aldermen, and he died in 
office, April second, 1891. 

Jarvis N. Dunham, a man of force in local affairs under the 
town government, was born in the Berkshire village of Savoy, 
May first, 1828, and died at Pittsfield, December second, 1891. 
He was admitted to the bar in 1856, and in 1862 made Pittsfield 
his home. In 1866 he became connected with the management 
of the Springfield Fire and Marine Insurance Company, and was 
its president from 1880 until his death; but he continued to be a 
resident of Pittsfield, was three times elected a representative of 
the local district to the General Court, and was a wise, effective, 
and eloquent counsellor at the town's public meetings. During 
the later years of his life, Mr. Dunham was a member of the 
directorates of the Agricultural National Bank, the Berkshire 
Life Insurance Company, and the Boston and Albany Railroad. 

The most valuable officer of the Berkshire Agricultural Society 
in its halcyon days was Henry M. Peirson, who was born in 
Richmond, Berkshire County, in 1825 and came to Pittsfield 
about 1848. He was a dealer in hardware on North Street for 
almost half a century, in partnership for a part of that period 
with Dr. Stephen Reed and with George N. Dutton. The store 
which Mr. Peirson conducted still bears his name. He died at 
Pittsfield, May seventh, 1894. Mr. Peirson was an unassuming, 
conscientious, high-principled man, upon whom his associates in 
any undertaking were accustomed to rely for methodical thor- 
oughness. His long service as a deacon was of memorable assist- 
ance to the South Congregational Church. 



PROMINENT CITIZENS 333 

Pittsfield's oldest physician, at the time of his death, Feb- 
ruary ninth, 1895, was Charles Bailey, who was born in East 
Medway, Massachusetts, in 1821. He was educated at Brown 
University, and studied medicine at the Berkshire Medical Col- 
lege in Pittsfield. From the latter institution he was graduated 
in 1843. Six years later, having in the meantime been converted 
to homeopathy, he returned to Pittsfield, and there remained in 
active practice until he died. His mind was alert and acquisi- 
tive, and he never ceased to be a student; nor were his studies 
confined to his profession. Dr. Bailey's extended and observant 
travels were the means of obtaining for Pittsfield progressive 
ideas of various sorts, 

Thomas P. Pingree, who was born in Salem, Massachusetts, 
in 1830, came to Pittsfield in 1853 to study in the law-office of 
Rockwell and Colt, wherein he afterward became a partner, 
having been admitted to the bar in 1855. He thus had the dis- 
tinction of being in intimate association, at different times, 
with such eminent Pittsfield lawyers as Julius Rockwell, James 
D. Colt, and James M. Barker. Mr. Pingree was a cultivated, 
aristocratic man of wide learning and exceptionally pure ideals. 
As a lawyer, he was not adaptable to changing conditions, and he 
clung proudly and immovably to the professional traditions in 
which he had been schooled. His death occurred at Pittsfield, 
February ninth, 1895. 

John E. Merrill was born in 1820 at Pittsfield, where he died, 
June fourteenth, 1896. He was a grandson of Capt. Hosea Mer- 
rill of the Revolution, and until 1886 he lived on the farm which 
had been cultivated by his great-grandfather in the eastern part 
of the town in 1775. Mr. Merrill was often entrusted by the 
voters of Pittsfield with public office and was a prominent member 
of the Berkshire Agricultural Society. 

A pleasant type of the old-time village lawyer was Lorenzo 
H. Gamwell, who was born in Washington, Massachusetts, in 
1821 and died at Pittsfield, November fourth, 1896. He was 
admitted to the bar in 1848 and practiced law for many years 
in partnership with Samuel W. Bowerman. Affable and con- 
scientious in the conduct of business, he was elected to represent 
Pittsfield in the General Court, and was a respected counsellor 
in public affairs under the town government. 



334 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

George Y. Learned, a brother of Edward Learned, was born 
in West Troy, New York, in 1827, and on September fourth, 1897, 
he died at Pittsfield. He came to Pittsfield first in 1853, and was 
there associated with his brother's manufacturing enterprises, of 
which for a short time he was a representative in New York. In 
Pittsfield he was popular in the fire department, and one of the 
volunteer companies was named for him. Mr. Learned was 
prominent in town politics and an eSicient selectman under the 
town government. His disposition was sanguine, cheerful, and 
sympathetic. He was a member of the original board of trustees 
of the Berkshire Athenaeum, and at the time of his death was a 
city auditor of unusual competence. 

The death, on January twentieth, 1898, of William J. Coogan, 
deprived Pittsfield prematurely of a valued citizen. The son of 
Owen Coogan, he was born in the town in 1850. Mr. Coogan 
was appointed postmaster of Pittsfield in 1887; and was again 
appointed in 1895. He served the public with scrupulous fidel- 
ity. His nature was of that loyal and sunny sort which makes 
many friends; and his influence among the younger Pittsfield men 
of his time was beneficial to the community. 

The mercantile success of Moses England, who died in Pitts- 
field, December twenty-fifth, 1898, was destined to have an im- 
portant effect upon the business life of the city. Mr. England 
was born in Bavaria in 1830. He first came to Pittsfield in 1857; 
and thereafter, with the exception of two years from 1874 to 
1876, he was a Pittsfield resident. In 1886 he retired from the 
dry goods business which he established on North Street, and 
which has since been greatly expanded by his sons. Mr. England 
was quiet, earnest and home-loving, and he won the respect of his 
Yankee neighbors at a time when the village of Pittsfield was by 
no means cosmopolitan. 

Almiron D. Francis, who died in Pittsfield, December twelfth, 
1899, was born in the town. May eleventh, 1807. His great- 
grandfather was Captain William Francis, a member of the first 
town government in 1761, a stalwart oflBcer in the Revolution, 
and the respected village leader of the "West Part." Mr. Fran- 
cis from 1852 to 1865 conducted the machine shop established by 
Gordon McKay, and afterward devoted himself to real estate 



PROMINENT CITIZENS 335 

operations. Kindly and reliable, he was for more than forty 
years a deacon of the First Baptist Church, of which his father 
had been one of the founders. Although he never held political 
office, his influence in public affairs was valuable, and his advice 
therein, as well as in private matters, was often sought by his 
fellow citizens. 

The legal talent of Andrew J. Waterman obtained for him 
the distinction of serving the public for more than thirty suc- 
cessive years as register of probate, as district attorney, and as 
attorney general of the Commonwealth. He was born in North 
Adams, June twenty-third, 1825, and in 1854 was admitted to the 
Berkshire bar. Having become register of probate in 1855, he 
retained that office until 1881. In 1872 he removed his home to 
Pittsfield, the newly established county seat. In 1880, 1883, and 
1886 he was elected district attorney, and in 1887 was chosen 
attorney general of Massachusetts. In the latter high position 
he served for four years. Mr. Waterman died on October fourth, 
1900. He was a hard working lawyer, who owed his success to 
patient labor rather than to aggressiveness, and who faced legal 
antagonists and difficulties with unruffled calmness rather than 
with showy fervor; long experience in the probate office had im- 
parted to him, perhaps, a judicial, rather than a combative, cast of 
mind. Before a jury, or on the public platform, he spoke with 
dignity and effect. His political following in Pittsfield was 
trustful and spirited, and he was the Republican nominee for 
mayor in the first city election in 1890. His acquaintance with 
the people of Berkshire was unusually large and intimate; and 
his plain manner of living, simple enjoyments, and industrious 
habits were in accord with the best of the county's old-fashioned 
traditions. 

During the later years of the town, the most consistently 
active participant in town meetings was Oliver W. Robbins, who 
was born in Pittsfield in 1812 and there died, July seventeenth, 
1899. He was a farmer in the eastern part of the town until 
about 1853, when he made his home in the central village. In 
1869 he established a shop for the manufacture of shoes, in which 
he was soon joined by Charles W. Kellogg as a partner. The 
Robbins and Kellogg shoe factory, near Silver Lake, was one of 



336 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

Pittsfield's important industries for a considerable period. The 
development of real estate on Jubilee Hill also contributed to Mr. 
Robbin's prosperity. In town or fire district meetings he was a 
rugged economist. Often the voters were merely amused by his 
protests, but sometimes they were judiciously heedful of them, 
and sometimes the town was a gainer because of his untiring, 
honest, and fearless vigilance, and because the voters were atten- 
tive to his favorite dictum — "Somebody has got to pay for these 
things." Mr. Robbins represented Pittsfield in the lower house 
of the General Court, and in his old age was elected to the state 
senate. 

Another figure of prominence at town meetings, although he 
never held public office, was William Renne. He was born in 
Dalton in 1809, and he lived in Pittsfield from 1830 until his 
death, March tenth, 1901. Mr. Renne patented and manufac- 
tured a medicinal remedy, which had an extensive sale, and he 
invested largely in local real estate. A public-spirited and 
thoughtful citizen of many ideas, he was the leading supporter 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church at a period financially critical 
in its history. 

Of distinguished Pittsfield ancestry, John Allen Root was 
born in Pittsfield in 1850, and there died, October sixteenth, 1902. 
He engaged actively in local politics, and represented Pittsfield 
in the state legislature. For many years he was clerk and 
treasurer of St. Stephen's parish. In any office he was pains- 
taking and reliable, and his popularity was especially marked 
in the volunteer fire department and in fraternal orders. 

In 1903 Pittsfield was deeply affected by the death of her 
most eminent citizen, Henry L. Dawes. As congressman and 
senator, he had represented the Commonwealth for thirty-six 
years at Washington. The governor, formally advising the 
General Court of the death of Mr. Dawes, said v/ith truth that 
always he "exhibited that devotion to the welfare of humanity 
and that persistency in championing the cause of the weak 
which illustrate the true spirit of Massachusetts." Henry 
Laurens Dawes was born in Cummington, Massachusetts, Octo- 
ber thirtieth, 1816. After graduation from Yale College in 
1839, he studied law at Greenfield, Massachusetts, and was ad- 



PROMINENT CITIZENS 337 

mitted to the Hampshire County bar in 1842. In 1844 he was 
married to Miss Electa Sanderson of Ashfield. He practiced 
law in North Adams and, beginning in 1848, he was sent to both 
branches of the state legislature. In 1853 he was appointed to 
be district attorney, and so served until 1857, when he was 
elected to the lower house of Congress. There he remained for 
eighteen successive years, and in 1876 he began a continuous 
service of the same duration as a United States senator. He 
had made his home in Pittsfield in 1864, where he died, February 
fifth, 1903. 

So far as the performance of his public duties permitted, he 
continued his legal practice, and with distinguished success, for 
he was a learned lawyer and a forcible, conscientious advocate; 
and he was invited by Governor Claflin and again by Governor 
Washburn to a place on the bench of the Supreme Judicial Court 
of Massachusetts. But the capitol at Washington was, of 
course, the theater of his most important activity. The retire- 
ment of Mr. Dawes from the Senate in 1893 marked the end of a 
period of uninterrupted legislative work equaled then by that of 
no other living American. As a national legislator, he had faced 
the gathering storm clouds of the Civil War and the awful tem- 
pest which broke from them; he had grappled with the desperate 
diflBculties of reconstruction; he had seen the population of the 
country grow from twenty-two to seventy millions; he had voted 
upon the admission of sixteen states to the Union; and he had 
taken a helpful part in solving the complicated problems involved 
in this expansion. His circle of acquaintance had included nine 
presidents — Buchanan, Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, Hayes, Gar- 
field, Arthur, Cleveland, Harrison; and at the funeral of Presi- 
dent Lincoln he was chosen to be a pall-bearer. 

For thirty-six years, few important public measures had been 
proposed of which the affirmation or defeat in Congress had not 
been influenced by him, but the remarkable legislative career of 
Mr. Dawes can be described only briefly in these pages. In the 
House he was at the head of the committee on elections from 
1859 to 1869. In the next Congress he was chairman of the 
committee on appropriations. In 1871 his leadership of the 
majority in the House was formally recognized by the appoint- 



338 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

ment to be chairman of the committee on ways and means, and 
in that position of high responsibiUty he served for four years. 
His principal work in the Senate was at the head of the committee 
on Indian affairs. These duties, and many others, were per- 
formed with tireless industry and with vigilant devotion to the 
public good. 

His labors in behalf of the Indians won for him perhaps his 
greatest distinction. During his service of sixteen years as 
chairman of the Senate's committee on Indian affairs, he pro- 
cured the appropriation of nearly $16,000,000 for the education 
of Indians and for the establishment of about eighty Indian 
schools. As a result of his efforts, a law was passed which pro- 
vided a free and secure homestead farm for every Indian who 
would take it, with a title deed guaranteed at the end of twenty- 
five years. Furthermore, the law carried with it full rights of 
citizenship to such Indians as availed themselves of its offer. 
"Older readers" said the Springfield Republican in 1893, "will 
remember the mark which he (Mr. Dawes) made in the popular 
branch of Congress, and will be disposed to insist that the later 
work should not be permitted to overshadow the earlier. Yet 
by so much as the moral is greater than the material, valuable 
as was the service rendered as representative in the business in- 
terests of the nation and the course of retrenchment and econ- 
omy, does the last outweigh the first, even after the support 
given to the cause of the Union be reckoned in." 

In spite of his national prominence, he was the most unpre- 
tentious of men; but there were three of his achievements, he 
once humorously remarked, which he wished to be recorded in 
his epitaph — that he had moved the first appropriation for the 
weather bureau, the first for the fish commission, and the first 
for filling in the notorious "old canal" at Washington. 

He possessed little of the art of elocution. His speech per- 
suaded because it was that of a logical, sensible, earnest man, 
who had mastered his subject with extraordinary thoroughness. 
By birth a farm boy, with the hard work of a farm the portion of 
his early youth, Mr. Dawes always retained habits of industry 
and of plain living, and seemingly an indifference to the ac- 
cumulation of property, except as the means of culture and simple 



PROMINENT CITIZENS 339 

comfort. His nature was domestic. He liked his neighbors and 
he craved their good opinion, and to young people he was par- 
ticularly kind. In Pittsfield he was as attentive to his civic 
duties as he was in Washington to the mighty concerns of the 
nation; and there is still to be seen a record book of the Water 
Street school district, kept by "H. L, Dawes, Clerk", while he 
was an eminent congressman. 

His old age, spent in his home on Elm Street,- was happy and 
serene. He busied himself with literary work, published some 
magazine articles of political reminiscence, and delivered a 
course of lectures at Dartmouth College; and he preserved to the 
last his interest in local affairs, especially in those of the Berk- 
shire Athenaeum, of which institution he was one of the original 
trustees and for which he suggested to Thomas Allen the erection 
of the present building. Tributes of respect and regret from 
many men of high station, including the President of the United 
States, were elicited by his death; but more in keeping with his 
temperament seemed the testimony of his own townsfolk to the 
honor and affection in which they held him. 

George H. Laflin, born in Canton, Connecticut, in 1828, 
spent the years of his early manhood in Pittsfield, whence he 
removed to Chicago in 1863. After 1888, however, he made 
Pittsfield his summer home and was a liberal contributor to 
several local charitable institutions, conspicuously to the House 
of Mercy. Mr. Laflin died in Pittsfield, July twenty-fourth, 
1904. 

The removal of the county seat to Pittsfield in 1868 caused 
several of the county officials to become citizens of the town, 
and among them was Henry Walbridge Taft, who had then been 
for twelve years clerk of the courts. He was born in Sunderland, 
Massachusetts, November thirteenth, 1818. At the age of 
nineteen, he went to Lenox to edit a newspaper; but he studied 
law instead, was admitted to the Berkshire bar in 1841, and in 
1856 was appointed clerk of the courts to fill the unexpired term 
of Charles Sedgwick. Mr. Taft thereafter was continuously re- 
elected to that office until he declined the nomination in 1896, 
having served for forty years. The date of his death was Sep- 
tember twenty-second, 1904. Mr. Taft remained to the end of 



340 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

his days a legal official of that sort which many are fain to declare 
is the old school. His respect for the work, the ceremonial 
etiquette, and the traditions of courts of law was profound; 
his legal scholarship was exceptional; and he performed his 
official duties both with exactness and with singular personal 
dignity. He was long an officer of the Berkshire Athenaeum 
and a deacon of the First Church, and he served the business 
community in such positions of trust as the presidency of the 
Third National Bank. Of a sociable and mellow nature, he 
liked to tell humorous anecdotes and to write humorous verses. 
Mr. Taft was an enthusiastic antiquarian, and an enlivening 
leader of the Berkshire Historical and Scientific Society. 

Edward D. Jones was born in the Berkshire town of Otis in 
1824, and died at Pittsfield, December thirtieth, 1904. As 
early as 1850, when he was a resident of East Lee, Mr. Jones 
was a well-known manufacturer of paper mill machinery. In 
1867 he became connected with the machine shop then conducted 
by Clark and Russell on McKay Street in Pittsfield; and the 
later development of this plant, under the ownership and direc- 
tion of Mr. Jones and of the company which now bears his name, 
was a notable example of enterprise and business sagacity. 

Of unremitting industry and application, Mr. Jones allowed 
himself few avocations, and political service was not among 
them. In 1887, however, he was elected a state senator; and 
he was a member of the city's first board of public works, so 
serving for eight years. He was peculiarly well-adapted for the 
latter office, being by temperament and habit a doer. The 
Methodist Episcopal Church enjoyed the advantage of his sup- 
port. In partnership with Solomon N. Russell, he placed the 
town under obligations to him by improving North Street by 
the erection of Central Block, and he was instrumental in en- 
couraging some new local industries of no little importance to the 
general welfare. 

It was only ten years after the death of Judge Colt in 1881 
that Pittsfield was again honored by the appointment of one of 
its citizens to the bench of the highest legal tribunal in the 
Commonwealth. James Madison Barker was born in Barker- 
ville, in the western part of Pittsfield, October twenty-third, 



PROMINENT CITIZENS 341 

1839. His father was John V. Barker. In 1860 James M. 
Barker was graduated from Williams College, and in 1863 was 
admitted to the bar in the county of Suffolk. His wife, to 
whom he was married in 1864, was Miss Helena Whiting, of 
Bath, New York. Shortly after his admission to the bar, he be- 
came a member of the law firm of Pingree and Barker, which 
may be said to have been the direct descendant of the partner- 
ship of Rockwell and Colt; he represented Pittsfield in the state 
legislature; and he was a particularly eflBcient clerk of the town 
and the fire district. His interest in local municipal government 
was constant, and he always was a conscientious and influential 
participant in town meetings. 

Having been in 1874 appointed to a commission for revising 
the statutes of Massachusetts, he both enlarged his reputation 
for legal ability and cultivated that erudite knowledge of statu- 
tory law which was afterwards of essential help to the work of 
the judiciary of the Commonwealth. In 1882 he was appointed 
a justice of the Superior Court. To the bench of the Supreme 
Judicial Court he was promoted in 1891. There he served with 
honor and usefulness, until his death in Boston, October second, 
1905. 

Judge Barker was a member of the board of trustees of Wil- 
liams College, an incorporator, and a trustee for more than 
thirty years, of the Berkshire Athenaeum, and an officer of the 
Berkshire Life Insurance Company for nearly the same length 
of time. His value to these institutions, and to many others, 
was that of a calm and even-minded counsellor, neither to be 
easily deceived by vain optimism nor to be easily discouraged 
by difficulty. His bearing was distinguished, and his counte- 
nance was at once refined and forceful. He was generously en- 
dowed with the art of oratory, and from the platform he spoke 
with both manly fire and pleasant stateliness of diction and de- 
meanor. His ideals of civic duty and political rectitude had 
been purely conceived, and he took care to express them in 
words dignified as well as convincing. It was as a favorite public 
speaker, indeed, that he was best known, especially in his later 
years, to Pittsfield citizens. 

A diligent scholar and a faithful lover of books, Judge Barker 



342 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

was no less a lover of nature and of life in the open. He was 
fond of a day with his shotgun or his fishing rod, and of the com- 
panionship of camp and hunting lodge. It was his custom to 
make excursions through parts of New England seldom seen by 
the casual traveler, and there to gather experiences and observa- 
tions of rural ways and quaint character, which his pen would 
describe charmingly for the entertainment of his friends. For 
friendship his genius was rare, and the lives of many Pittsfield 
men of his generation were warmed and brightened by it. 

William A. Whittlesey, becoming a resident of Pittsfield in 
1886, exemplified in many ways the cosmopolitan spirit which 
was at that time beginning to assert itself in the town. He was 
born at Danbury, Connecticut, February twenty-first, 1849, 
and was educated at Marietta College. In 1874 he was married 
to Miss Caroline Tilden, a niece of Samuel J. Tilden of New York. 
Mr. Whittlesey's earlier commercial experience was gained in 
Detroit and in Wisconsin. When he came to Berkshire he was 
in the prime of a manhood exceptionally vigorous, and so cir- 
cumstanced that he was able to give financial support to his 
faith in Pittsfield and Pittsfield's future. 

The possibilities of the industrial use of electricity were not 
then commonly imagined. Upon the imagination of Mr. 
Whittlesey, however, in whom the dreamer and the practical man 
of affairs were curiously blended, these possibilities laid strong 
hold. He was one of those who effected a fuller development of 
the business of supplying electrical light and power by the 
amalgamation in 1890 of the two local electrical lighting com- 
panies into the Pittsfield Electric Company. For the new 
company he built, as his own venture, a central station. These 
transactions brought him into touch with William Stanley; and 
it was through the medium of Mr. Whittlesey's brisk voice that 
most people in Pittsfield first heard of the project of the Stanley 
Electric Manufacturing Company. Although the chief en- 
deavors of his business career in Pittsfield were devoted to for- 
warding the interests of these two corporations, Mr. Whittlesey's 
public spirit caused him to engage in several other useful under- 
takings. 

In 1897 he was a representative from Pittsfield to the General 



PROMINENT CITIZENS 343 

Court, and for the two years following he was a prominent and 
valuable member of the Massachusetts senate; but he was too 
mercurial, perhaps, to be a politician in the ordinary and limited 
meaning of the word, and he freed himself very easily from the ob- 
ligation of party ties when he felt that his party was wrong. 
Openly impulsive, possessing a handsome and commanding 
presence, endowed with unusual energy of mind and body, he 
was able readily to impart his enthusiasms. His advocacy of a 
cause, whether in business, in politics, or in social life, meant 
immediate action of some sort. Thus by nature sensitive and 
enthusiastic, frank and impetuous, Mr. Whittlesey was so con- 
stituted as to attract, and to be attracted by, the companionship 
of young people. It may be doubted if he was more proud of 
any of his achievements than he was of the fact that for a decade 
he was president of the Pittsfield Y. M. C. A., and that he was 
of proved value to the association, having come to it at a time 
of some travail and having left it with an invigorated membership 
and a home of its own. He died at Pittsfield, December fifth, 
1906. 

Edgar M. Wood, a successful lawyer who was born in Ches- 
hire, Massachusetts, in 1832 and died in Pittsfield, June second, 
1906, tried more cases, it is believed, than any other Pittsfield, 
or even Massachusetts, attorney contemporary with him. He 
was educated at Williams and at Union, was admitted to the 
Berkshire bar in 1859, and was the local United States com- 
missioner from 1868 until his death. Mr. Wood was a self- 
contained man of rigorous industry, singleness of purpose, and 
aggressive force, fond both of the give-and-take clash of legal 
combat and of the quiet of his home and his library. 

One of the city's public schools was named appropriately 
for Franklin F. Read, who served as a member of the school com- 
mittee for a number of years. He was born in Windsor in 1827 
and came to Pittsfield with his father in 1838. Part of his 
youth was spent in California, but in 1853 he was established as 
a provision merchant in Pittsfield, and there spent the rest of 
his life. He was prominent in town affairs and as an administra- 
tor of private trusts. Mr. Read died on December thirty-first, 
1906. 



344 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

During the final years of the town and fire district govern- 
ments, Pittsfield elected few public servants who were more 
energetic and competent than Frank W. Hinsdale. He was born 
in the neighboring town of Hinsdale in 1826, and there, in 1853, 
he began the business of woolen manufacturing, making his 
home, however, in Pittsfield, where he died, October third, 1906. 
He was president of the Berkshire Mutual Fire Insurance Com- 
pany ; and in the course of his experience of nearly half a century 
as a Berkshire manufacturer he acquired a peculiarly intimate 
knowledge of men and affairs throughout the county. Mr. 
Hinsdale was a companionable, humorsome man, who cherished 
anecdotes of Pittsfield life and Pittsfield characters with ap- 
preciative delight, and whose likes and dislikes were strongly 
marked. 

The career at the Berkshire bar of Marshall Wilcox was out 
of the ordinary because of its duration as well as because of its 
distinction. He was born in Stockbridge, March nineteenth, 
1821, was admitted to the bar in 1847, and continued in the 
practice of the law until his death at Pittsfield, October four- 
teenth, 1906. Having been graduated from Williams College in 
1844, he lived in Otis and in Lee before he became a resident of 
Pittsfield in 1871. For a period of forty years, the name of no 
Berkshire attorney appears more frequently than his in the re- 
ports of the Commonwealth's highest court. His talent and 
his assiduity were inspired by a respect for his profession which 
seemed to be almost reverence, and he labored in it with a whole- 
hearted zest not unlike that of a religious devotee. Acquired 
in this spirit, his legal learning was profound and wide, and he 
utilized it with faithful integrity. An old-fashioned New Eng- 
lander, Mr. Wilcox took an active part in town meetings, and his 
opinions were attentively considered by the voters and the town 
officials. His demeanor was grave, deliberate, and courtly; 
but he could be moved to vigorous scorn, in public and in private, 
by insincerity, pretension, or wastefulness, and he could express 
his scorn with biting sarcasm, which occasionally employed a 
vocabulary humorously at variance with his austere aspect. 
Idlers and shirkers he regarded with disdain, and on the other 
hand he was ready with kindly help and encouragement for all, 



PROMINENT CITIZENS 345 

and especially for all young men, who labored in earnest and who 
respected their work. 

A quiet, but active, factor of assistance in local business and 
public affairs was Charles W. Kellogg. He was born at West 
Pittsfield, October eighth, 1847. For a long period after 1870 
he was a partner of Oliver W. Robbins in the manufacture of 
shoes, and he was prominent in organizing the Berkshire Loan 
and Trust Company, of which he was the first treasurer, and the 
president at the time of his death. Mr. Kellogg was a member 
of the important commission which began the construction of 
the city's modern system of sewers. He had a cultivated mind, 
with a taste for research and statistical information of all sorts; 
and he was one of the trustees of the Berkshire Athenaeum. He 
died at Pittsfield, April nineteenth, 1907. 

Charles T. Plunkett, major of the Forty-ninth Massachusetts 
regiment during the Civil War, was born in Pittsfield in 1839, 
and died there, November tenth, 1907, having spent the final 
fourteen years of his life in his birthplace. His father was 
Thomas F. Plunkett. Major Plunkett was a placid, unassuming, 
amiable veteran of gigantic stature, who seemed to have literally 
no enemies in the city. At the time of his death he was the 
probation officer attached to the District Court of Central 
Berkshire. 

Dr. William M. Mercer, a beloved physician and a citizen of 
extended and worthily directed influence, practiced his profession 
in Pittsfield for forty years. He was born in Kilkenny, Ireland, 
in 1842, and came to this country in 1857. The circumstances 
of his boyhood were humble, but his ambition was stalwart; 
and he resolutely worked his way through the Harvard Medical 
School. There he was graduated in 1866. In the next year he 
began practice in Pittsfield, where he died, June tenth, 1908. 
He had a high ideal of his vocation, wherein he was skilled 
and charitable. It is likely that for a long period his patients 
outnumbered those of any other Pittsfield doctor. His support 
and his labor, given constantly to the House of Mercy hospital, 
were of essential importance to the growth of the institution. 
Although his professional toil was arduous. Dr. Mercer otherwise 
served Pittsfield conspicuously. For thirty-four years, under 



346 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

the town and city governments, he was a faithful member of the 
school committee. He had fought hard for his own education; 
and he championed earnestly the cause of the public schools of 
Pittsfield. That cause had few advocates more popular and 
convincing. As a trustee of the Berkshire Athenaeum, he was 
most instrumental in bringing home to the people of the town a 
correct understanding of the mission of the library. Dr. Mercer 
was gentle-hearted, sympathetic, and quietly firm in his con- 
victions. He was a devout member of St. Joseph's Church. 

Franklin W. Russell, the youngest son of Solomon L. Russell, 
was born in Pittsfield in 1841, and died there, November seven- 
teenth, 1908. From 1865 until 1895 he was a resident of New 
York; he returned to Pittsfield in 1895; and in 1899, after the 
death of his brother, Solomon N., he was chosen president of the 
S. N. and C. Russell Manufacturing Company. Mr. Russell 
served as a member of Pittsfield's board of aldermen and school 
committee, and he was elected to the governor's council in 1906. 
He was an energetic man of strong purpose and forcible speech, 
who found joy in thorough and speedy accomplishment and no 
satisfaction in compromises or halfway measures. The Pilgrim 
Memorial Church, the Y. M. C. A., and the Boys' Club were in- 
debted to him for especially generous help; but his philanthropy 
and his public spirit were catholic, and he liberally supported 
many worthy causes. 

John H, Manning, born in Ellington, Connecticut, July 
twenty-third, 1846, came to Pittsfield with his parents when he 
was ten years old. His business was that of a druggist, and his 
thorough knowledge of it justified his appointment to the Massa- 
chusetts pharmacy commission. In 1885, however, the voters 
of Berkshire elected him a county commissioner, and thereafter 
he devoted himself chiefly to public works, particularly to the 
construction of highways. In 1900 he was appointed by the 
governor to the state highway commission, and he died in office, 
June second, 1909. Mr. Manning was both a careful student 
and a vigorous executive, enthusiastic in investigation as he was 
in action. He was a bright, attractive talker. His popularity 
was abundant, and he held the office of county commissioner for 
twelve years. Ardently patriotic, he delighted in the study of 



PROMINENT CITIZENS 347 

American history, wherein his interest was not merely bookish; 
and he believed heartily in the preservation of the ideals of our 
national heroes and of visible memorials of their deeds. 

A conspicuous part in town politics was taken by Thomas 
A. Oman, who made his home in Pittsfield in 1872, having pre- 
viously to that year been a store-keeper in Lee. He was born 
in Albany, New York, in 1824, and he died in Pittsfield, March 
thirty-first, 1909. Mr. Oman represented Pittsfield in the Gen- 
eral Court and was chosen one of the town's selectmen in 1881, 
1882, and 1884. He was conservative and discreet, and inclined 
to deem improper or imprudent that which was foreign to his 
experience; both his personal likes and dislikes were strongly 
marked, and he pertinaciously retained them. In his pleasant 
old age, when Pittsfield had outgrown its village ways, Mr. 
Oman's village ways were unchanged, and he personified a certain 
type of old-fashioned villager — methodical and placid, contented 
with the neighborly intercourse of old friends, proud of his town, 
fond of local reminiscence, and not desirous of the bustle of city 
life. 

Dr. Walter H. Wentworth was born in Stockbridge, in 1841, 
and began the practice of medicine in Pittsfield in 1869, having 
been graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 
New York in 1863, and having served as a military surgeon dur- 
ing the Civil War. On December seventh, 1910, he died at 
Pittsfield. Affectionately esteemed in many Pittsfield house- 
holds for forty years. Dr. Wentworth was a man of refined and 
literary tastes, companionable, stoutly patriotic, and a sincere 
appreciator of the good qualities of his fellow citizens. He de- 
lighted in the use of fowling gun and fishing rod; and the beauty 
of Berkshire's hills had no more ardent admirer. 

Another well-known physician was Dr. Oscar S. Roberts, 
who was born at Whitingham, Vermont, in 1837, and first came 
to Pittsfield in 1861, for the purpose of attending lectures at the 
Berkshire Medical College. He received his medical degree, 
however, from the University of Vermont in 1864, and after 
practicing his profession in Belchertown became a resident of 
Pittsfield in 1869 and remained there until his death, on January 
fourth, 1911. Dr. Roberts was a cheerful, optimistic, hospitable 



348 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

man and a trusted physician, serving the town efficiently as a 
member of the board of health. He was fond of books and 
music; one of his less important traits was a curious liking for 
novel devices of various sorts; and he is believed to have been 
the first person in the city to own a motor car. 

The active connection of Robert W. Adam with the Berkshire 
County Savings Bank as its treasurer, which began in 1865, span- 
ned a period of forty-six years. He was born, September 
twenty-eighth, 1825, in North Canaan, Connecticut, was gradu- 
ated from Williams College in 1845, and came to Pittsfield in 
order to enroll himself on the roster of that company of students 
in the law-office of Rockwell and Colt from which the Berkshire 
bar was so importantly recruited. He was admitted to the bar 
in 1849, and began practice in Pittsfield. There, in 1852, he was 
married to Miss Sarah P. Brewster. The date of his death was 
June eighteenth, 1911. 

Mr. Adam had little taste for public life, but he served the 
town as a representative to the General Court, and the city as 
president of the board of aldermen. His services to the people of 
Pittsfield lay chiefly, however, in his accurate management of 
financial trusts, for his exactness was thorough and imperturb- 
able. He was identified, more or less closely, with several busi- 
ness interests of local importance, such as the Agricultural 
National Bank, the Berkshire Mutual Fire Insurance Company, 
and the Pittsfield Coal Gas Company; but it was to the Berk- 
shire County Savings Bank that he daily devoted his careful 
thought and scrupulous labor for nearly half a century. While 
it was thus under his direction, the business of the bank increased 
thirteenfold. 

Conscientious in the performance of professional duty, he 
did not allow it to possess him completely. Mr. Adam was of 
the sort which loves a trout brook, a stretch of hilly woodland, 
a winding country road. He was an afiFectionate and constant 
comrade of worthy books, and the yield of his own diffident pen 
was charming and felicitous. His wit was proverbial in Pitts- 
field. He was a master of the art of amiable banter, and his 
humor would sparkle and shine suddenly from behind a screen 
of grave courtliness. In business transactions, in public or in 



PROMINENT CITIZENS 349 

social life, and in his church, Mr. Adam's obvious desire was not 
only to see the right thing done, but also to see the right thing 
done amicably; and to meet him was to be conscious of a serene 
and sunny influence. 

James W. Hull served the Berkshire Life Insurance Company, 
as treasurer, secretary, and president, for nearly forty years. 
He was born in New Lebanon, in the state of New York, Sep- 
tember twentieth, 1842. In 1865 he came to Pittsfield to enter 
the employ of the Pittsfield National Bank, and he began his 
service with the Berkshire Life Insurance Company in 1872. 
On February second, 1911, he died at Pittsfield. In 1876 he had 
been married to Miss Helen Edwards Plunkett, daughter of 
Thomas F. Plunkett. 

The watchfulness and industry with which he applied himself 
to his business employment might well have utilized completely 
the energies of one less vigorously minded. But his intellect, 
to an uncommon degree, was accumulative, always reaching out 
for new ideas; he was, in rural phrase, full of schemes; and the 
result of this was that Mr. Hull either originated or stimulated 
many local projects of many different sorts of value. Especially 
noteworthy were his progressive leadership of the town's school 
committee and his co-operation in obtaining for Pittsfield the 
convenience of street railways; and continuously after 1894 he 
served the Commonwealth as a member of its board of health. 

Though his mind was busily productive of schemes, it was 
not fanciful; and his faculty of choosing schemes and of carrying 
them into effect was guided by prudence and common sense. 
His memory was tenacious, and his long and close acquaintance 
with the characters of important Pittsfield men and their doings 
gave him a pleasant fund of local anecdote, in which was plenti- 
fully manifest his pride in the town and in its citizenry. His 
stature was commanding, and his face and tall, erect figure were 
not easily forgotten. Mr. Hull was a man of strong personal 
attachments whose intimates were few. Lifelong devotion to a 
weighty financial trust did not tend to make him demonstrative. 
People in difficulty, however, sought his aid with confidence, 
and his practical kindnesses were frequent and unostentatious. 
Of an aggressive temperament and trained hardily in the con- 



350 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

tentions of business life, he was at the same time deeply sympa- 
thetic with the aspirations of others and with the public spirit of 
the community. 

Jacob Gimlich, born at Weisenheim, Bavaria, October fourth, 
1845, came to Pittsfield in 1860. The portion of his youth was 
one of self-denial and rigorous toil, and after he had become a 
man of means and influence, he retained an understanding 
sympathy with the toilers and with the poor. The successful 
brewery, which he conducted for more than forty years in associa- 
tion with John White, did not monopolize his keen business ac- 
tivity. Mr. Gimlich was importantly connected with organizing 
the Berkshire Loan and Trust Company, the City Savings Bank, 
and the Musgrove Knitting Company. In 1884 and in 1885 he 
represented the town in the state legislature. He died at Pitts- 
field, January twenty-first, 1912. He was an energetic, frank, 
generous man, with a simple affection, characteristic of his race, 
for music, and companionship, and home life; and his devout and 
enthusiastic support of the German Lutheran Church was of 
great assistance to that society. Family ties had bound him 
closely in his boyhood to soldiers of our Civil War, and American 
patriotism was always in him a dominant trait, nor were his civic 
patriotism and neighborly spirit less noteworthy. 

An especially efficient water commissioner under the old fire 
district government was John Feeley, who died in Pittsfield, 
January second, 1915. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 
1825, began to learn the tinner's trade in Pittsfield in 1846, and 
for forty-two years conducted a shop on North Street for the sale 
of heating and plumbing appliances. He was chosen water 
commissioner in 1864, and served until the town became a city. 
Keen-minded, progressive, and public-spirited, Mr. Feeley pos- 
sessed an unusual faculty of recollection, and in his old age he 
was a valued source of information regarding earlier days. 
Beginning in 1870, he was for three years chief of the fire depart- 
ment. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 
THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION IN 1911 

PITTSFIELD, both as town and city, has been strongly 
addicted to the pleasant custom of holding public cele- 
brations and of making the most of them. The peace 
party of 1783, the reception to Lafayette in 1825, the Berkshire 
Jubilee in 1844, the return of the Forty-ninth regiment in 1863, 
the dedication of the Soldiers' Monument in 1872, each elicited 
enthusiastic and hospitable public spirit; and the same may be 
said of scores of Independence Day celebrations, and firemen's 
musters. But Pittsfield seems not to have been moved until 
1911 to observe an anniversary in her own history, nor to cele- 
brate herself, so to speak, with the notable exception of the ob- 
servance of the inauguration of the first city government. The 
town was born in 1761, and accordingly both her fiftieth and her 
one hundredth birthdays fell at a time when the Republic was 
on the brink of war and when Pittsfield people were in a mood 
too stern for self -congratulation. 

In 1911, however, circumstances were peculiarly auspicious 
for an adequate observance of the 150th anniversary of the in- 
corporation of the town. The nation was at peace. The city 
had recently attained a prosperity unexampled in its history. 
Local pride was reasonably exalted. Moreover, it should be 
noted that, within a few years, the Merchants' Association and 
the Board of Trade had conducted Fourth of July and other 
celebrations on a novelly elaborate scale and that thus many 
citizens had become somewhat trained in managing such events 
so as to secure safety, general co-operation, and impressive effect. 
It was formally pursuant to a request from the Board of 
Trade that the mayor, in February, 1911, designated a com- 
mittee, composed of members of the city government and of 
private citizens, "to consider the observance of the 150th anni- 



352 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

versary of the founding of Pittsfield, and a Fourth of July cele- 
bration." The committee consisted of John Nicholson, Henry 
Traver, Jr., Edward Rosenbaum, William L. Adam, Edward 
Boltwood, George H. Cooper, and William H. Eaton. John 
Nicholson was the chairman, and the mayor, Kelton B. Miller, 
served on the committee as chairman ex officio. William F. 
Francis was chosen secretary. The first meeting of the com- 
mittee was held on February twenty-third, and the members 
viewed the subject of their consideration with such favor that 
they immediately proceeded to the organization of an executive 
committee to plan and carry out the details of the proposed ob- 
servance. As finally constituted, this executive committee in 
charge of the 150th anniversary celebration was composed of 
Kelton B. Miller, (chairman ex officio), John Nicholson (chair- 
man), W^illiam F. Francis (secretary), Henry Traver, Jr., Henry 
A. Brewster, Edward Rosenbaum, J. H. Enright, John White, 
William Russell Allen, Henry R. Peirson, H. B. Sees, George H. 
Cooper, E. J. Spall, William H. Eaton, Luke J. Minahan, William 
L. Adam, Freeman M. Miller, Clement F. Coogan, Chester E. 
Gleason, A. M. Stronach, William J. Mercer, David J. Gimlich, 
Dr. M. W. Flynn, Daniel England, P. H. O'Donnell, S. Chester 
Lyon, A. J. Newman, L. W. Harger, Sydney T, Braman, Edward 
N. Huntress, Edward Boltwood, and Robert D. Bardwell. 
Twenty sub-committees were appointed, of which about five 
hundred people were members and each of which was under the 
leadership of a member of the executive committee as chairman. 
The scope of the celebration is indicated by the titles of the sub- 
committees — ecclesiastical services, music, historical, decora- 
tions, finance, entertainment, educational, parade, industrial, 
fireworks, commercial, illuminations, societies, invitations, or- 
ganizations, printing, reception, aviation, publicity, and trans- 
portation. 

Beginning early in March, the executive committee held 
weekly meetings at the city hall. To defray the expenses of the 
celebration, an appropriation of $4,000 was made by the mu- 
nicipal government, and a public subscription and sale of souve- 
nirs, conducted by the finance committee, resulted in the addi- 
tion of $8,200 to the fund. The date set for beginning the cele- 





JOSEPH TUCKER 
1832^1907 



WILLIAM A. WHITTLESEY 
1849—1906 





JOSEPH E. A. SMITH 
1822—1896 



HEZEKIAH S. RUSSELL 
1835—1914 



THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY IN 1911 353 

bration was Sunday, July second. A month or two before that 
day, popular interest had been aroused by the publication of a 
long series of newspaper articles, treating of Pittsfield history 
and arranged by the publicity committee; and the committee 
on invitations had invited the attendance of the President of the 
United States, the governor of the Commonwealth, the mayors 
of Massachusetts cities, the selectmen of Berkshire County 
towns, several hundred former citizens of Pittsfield, and the 
English descendants of William Pitt. 

In the last week of June, a loan collection of portraits and 
memorabilia, consisting of several hundred items, was placed 
on exhibition in the Museum on South Street. Arranged by 
the historical committee, this collection, including contributions 
from scores of homes, was of exceptional attractiveness and was 
probably the most complete assemblage of the sort ever seen in 
Pittsfield. Especially interesting were about fifty photographs 
picturing the town from 1854 to 1880, lent from the valuable 
collection of Erwin H. Kennedy. The exhibition remained on 
view for a month. The marking of historical sites was another 
preliminary work of the anniversary celebration. Thirty-eight 
places of historic interest within a short radius of the Park were 
studiously identified and designated by temporary markers. 
Some of these sites may here be enumerated for the benefit of the 
curious antiquarian. They included the site of the first public 
school, immediately west of St. Stephen's Church; of the first 
meeting house, fifty feet south of the First Church; of Capt. 
Dickinson's tavern (1798), on the corner of North and West 
Streets ; of the Pittsfield Coflee-house, where now stands Martin's 
block on Bank Row; and of the Berkshire Bank, the first Agri- 
cultural Bank, and the Pittsfield Female Academy, on the land 
of the Berkshire Athenaeum. At the south corner of North and 
Depot Streets a marker was placed indicating that one hundred 
feet to the west stood the home of John Brown, Pittsfield's most 
distinguished soldier in the Revolution. The site of the first fire 
engine house was designated, on School Street next the Baptist 
Church; and that of the town powder house, which stood near 
the present hose tower and was mischievously blown up in 1838, 
with disastrous results. Markers also indicated the sites of the 



354 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

original railroad station at the railroad bridge on North Street, 
and of the first post office, on the east corner of East and Second 
Streets. The former homes of famous citizens were marked, like 
the house of William Francis Bartlett on Wendell Avenue and of 
Henry Laurens Dawes on Elm Street. Where Elm Street crosses 
the river and where was built the first bridge in Pittsfield, a 
marker pointed out that nearby was the site of the first mill dam 
and of the house where the first town meeting assembled. Far- 
ther down the stream, near the intersection of High Street and 
Appleton Avenue, a marker indicated the site of the house of 
Patrick Daley, where, in 1835, religious services according to 
the rites of the Roman Catholic church were celebrated for the 
first time in Berkshire County. 

The preparatory labors of appropriate committees included 
also the decoration and illumination of the streets and public 
buildings. In the task of street decoration, the committeemen 
were, of course, greatly assisted by private effort. Much was 
made of electrical illumination, A reviewing stand, seating 
seven hundred people, was erected on the lawn in front of the 
Museum on South Street. The Park was elaborately arrayed, 
with pillars, shields, and bunting, as a "court of honor", in 
proper recognition of its being the historic center, hallowed by 
tradition, of Pittsfield life. Here the electrical display was note- 
worthy, for about 4,000 lamps were utilized. 

The celebration was formally opened Sunday forenoon, July 
second, when specially arranged services were conducted at the 
churches. The corner stone of the new Morningside Baptist 
Church was laid by the pastor, Rev. Harry C. Leach; and the 
exercises included addresses by Louis A. Frothingham, lieutenant 
governor of the Commonwealth, Rev. Herbert S. Johnson, and 
Kelton B. Miller. Mr. Frothingham, in the course of his speech, 
laid stress upon the propriety of making the laying of the corner 
stone of a church an integral part of the anniversary observances. 

"We meet at an auspicious time for the dedication of this 
holy edifice. It is the 150th anniversary of the founding of 
Pittsfield. As the church has ever been the bulwark of the state 
and nation, it is appropriate that such a ceremony as we are to 
perform today should begin the anniversary exercises. You are 
fortunate, ladies and gentlemen, in your history, in your sur- 



THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY IN 1911 355 

roundings, and in your successful accomplishment. The very 
name of your city recalls the life of a great Englishman whose 
soul breathed forth the spirit of freedom and brotherly love. 
To Chatham, who stood on such a high plane as a statesman and 
brought his country to the zenith of her power, this country, too, 
owes a debt of gratitude, and any city should be proud to bear 
his name." 

In the afternoon, a mass meeting assembled at the reviewing 
stand on South Street. Music was supplied by a chorus of one 
hundred singers, directed by Charles F. Smith. Mayor Miller 
presided, the principal address was made by President Harry A. 
GarjBeld of Williams College, and other speeches by Rev. William 
J. Dower, Charles E. Hibbard, and Hezekiah S. Russell, who 
was one of the three former selectmen then surviving. Mr. 
Hibbard reminded his hearers of the true significance of the 
occasion: 

"The birthday of a nation, of a municipality, or of an indi- 
vidual in and of itself is of small moment, but when the birthday 
marks the beginning of a life or career of service to humanity, or 
the practical working out of high ideals in national, communal, 
or individual life, then that day has significance, and is worthy of 

commemoration Pride in Pittsfield's past history 

and her present worth is pardonable and justifiable, and is a 
marked characteristic of her citizens, but as mere pride in ances- 
try and family possessions never yet made a useful man or 
woman, and is a worthy sentiment only when it incites to emula- 
tion of the virtues of the past, so mere pride in Pittsfield's past 
will not make of us useful citizens except as it inspires us with 
the ambition to maintain the high standard of the past, to con- 
tinue her honorable record, and to perpetuate, enlarge, and make 
more effective the blessings we have inherited. 

"What an array of noble men and women have made Pitts- 
field their home, and what a record of service to Pittsfield, to 
the state, and to the nation they have made! We need not the 
record of the printed pages or the words from the platform to re- 
mind us of what the citizens of Pittsfield have done. As we look 
about us, we see on every hand memorials of their devotion to the 
best there is in life, in the institutions and organizations estab- 
lished, or endowed, or supported, to promote the religious, moral, 
and intellectual uplift of the people, to cultivate the right think- 
ing and right living of our youth, and to minister to the wants of 
the aged, the sick, and the unfortunate. Would you understand 
in part the price Pittsfield paid for the preservation of the nation, 



S56 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

go stand before yonder monument, Pittsfield's memorial to her 
soldier dead, and, with bared heads, read from the tablets thereon 
the roll of honor, the names of Pittsfield's sons who gave their 
lives a sacrifice that the nation might live. If it be true, and it is 
true, that memorials of great events and of distinguished service 
in the lives of nations have ever been a power in keeping alive 
and operative love of country and devotion to duty, these many 
memorials of ours should be a power in this community, 
for keeping alive our love for Pittsfield and our devotion to her 
highest interests." 

President Garfield found occasion to describe pleasantly the 
impression made by the city upon a visitor: 

"Founded when her sister cities to the east and west were old, 
Pittsfield is still young in strength and beauty, though six gen- 
erations, as men count time, have lived to serve and honor her. 

*'The visitor to your fair city must almost conclude that you 
are spared the hard problems which beset other municipalities. 
He sees no places crowded and ill-kept, wherein lurking disease 
and sordid vice find easy prey; no buildings smiting the sky and 
casting black shadows on damp and narrow streets; but broad 
avenues bulwarked by friendly buildings, and stately highways 
shaded by the sheltering foliage of a thousand trees. He sees no 
masses of humanity filling the streets, madly pursuing fortune 
and pursued by care. Friend meets friend in pleasant inter- 
course; keen in rivalry but considerate; proud of the city's 
growth, but rejoicing in her natural beauty and cultivation. 

"And yet no visitor familiar with municipal life in the United 
States can fail to know that you have not wholly escaped. The 
change from town to city in 1891 was momentous. It produced 
as well as reflected conditions. When you became a city, you 
thought as a city. Undoubtedly new kinds of problems have 
pressed upon you during the last twenty years and some of them 
may be traceable to your thought of Pittsfield as a city. But 
manifestly the strong, simple life of the New England town has 
not been spoiled. Your inheritances remain, guaranteeing a 
future of unexcelled influence." 

In the evening, anniversary addresses were delivered at St. 
Joseph's Church by Rev. P. W. Morrissey, at St. Charles' Church 
by Rev. William J. Dower, and at the First Church by Rev. I. 
Chipman Smart. Father Morrissey asked attention to some of 
the virtues of those responsible for the early development of the 
town: 

"Our present material prosperity assures us in no uncertain 



THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY IN 1911 357 

way that our forefathers, who lived their years in this beneficent 
clime, were men and women devoted to work, and the evidences 
of industry, which we behold around us, fill us with admiration 
and gratitude for the proud possessions which we enjoy at a cost 
to them of great suffering and much personal sacrifice. From a 
small and insignificant hamlet, with a few scattered settlers, our 
city has grown and flourished until in its present magnificent 
development it gives shelter to thousand of industrious and 
peace-loving citizens. Some of the present day population can 
trace relationship back to the sturdy men of Pittsfield's early 
foundation. Most of us, however, have come here, or are des- 
cendants of men and women who came here, to unite their toil 
with the toil of the citizenry of the past in the upbuilding of our 
city in its present healthful proportions. 

"But proud as we are of the record of accomplishment 
achieved through the labors and sacrifices of a sturdy ancestry, 
and grateful as we all must be for the happiness and comforts 
which are ours in abounding measure, we must not be unmindful 
of the fact that material accomplishment and civic betterment 
can only come and in truth have only come to our community 
life as a reward of virtue, and resultant of religious conviction 
and practice." 

Father Dower eloquently reviewed the work of Catholicism 
in America. Dr. Smart, speaking at the First Church with a 
peculiar knowledge of the city and its citizens, prefaced his ad- 
dress with an interesting estimate of certain local characteristics: 

"Pittsfield people think well of Pittsfield, not with loud 
boasting, at least, in the typical Pittsfield man, but with an air 
of satisfaction which recalls the princes in 'Cymbeline'. They 
dwelt modestly in a cave, but their thoughts 'did hit the roofs of 
palaces'. This habit of Pittsfield people to rest content with 
Pittsfield is not new. Neither is it comparative. It would be 
the same if we knew no other places, and it would be the same if 
we knew all other places. 

"It is positive appreciation of our own things. The self- 
contained quality of life in Pittsfield is due partly, perhaps, to 
the fact that it was so long an outpost of civilization in the 
Commonwealth, too far from Boston, behind its protecting 
mountains, to snuff up the east wind. Isolation often means a 
life poverty stricken, cramped, stranded in muddy shallows. 
Pittsfield was spared loss through isolation by her strong men. 
In the professions and in business, she had men of stature, men 
of vision, men of wide repute, gifted for service and rule, and 
devoted to the town, some of them traveled men, not a few of them 



358 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

men of marked and unrestrained individuality. What they did and 
thought and said in the town is a large part of what they did for 
the town 

"Some conditions which helped to make a self-contained life 
in Pittsfield are no longer operative. We are not now aloof 
from the world. A growing number of our inhabitants are here 
today and gone tomorrow. The control of our great business is 
elsewhere. Some elements, inner and outer, which went to the 
making of our leaders and procured them deference, are wanting 
now. When our heroes go, we do not replace them. We have 
the temper of the men who voted for Andrew Jackson long after 
he was dead. We have a custom of the heart and will not break 
it. But the fathers did not exhaust heroism. There are, there 
will be, heroes serving their generation better than the fathers 
could serve it, and we shall approve them and follow them, al- 
though of course we cannot feel towards them quite as we feel 
towards the heroes who kindled our imagination of successful 
life in the days of our youth." 

Finally, among the anniversary observances of the first day, 
was a brief speech at the railroad station by the President of the 
United States, William Howard Taft, who happily chanced to be 
passing through the city. The attendance at the services and 
meetings of Sunday was admirable, both in numbers and spirit, 
and it was manifest that the people were entering upon their 
celebration with an adequate sense of its significance. The 
weather was fair, and so continued, but the unusual heat of the 
three days was long remembered. 

The forenoon of the next day, July third, was devoted in chief 
to the dedicatory exercises of a stone and tablet, commemorative 
of the headquarters of some of the town's early patriots. The 
marker, placed at the northwest corner of the premises of the 
Museum, bears this inscription: 

NEAR THIS SPOT STOOD 

EASTON'S TAVERN 

HERE ON MAY 1, 1775, COL. JAMES 

EASTON AND JOHN BROWN OF PITTSFIELD 

AND CAPTAIN EDWARD MOTT OF PRESTON, 

CONNECTICUT, PLANNED THE CAPTURE OF 

FORT TICONDEROGA. WHICH ON MAY 10 

SURRENDERED TO THE CONTINENTAL VOLUNTEERS 

UNDER ETHAN ALLEN WITH 

COLONEL EASTON SECOND IN COMMAND. 



THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY IN 19U 359 

This memorial had been provided by Berkshire Chapter, Sons 
of the American Revolution, and the dedication aceordmgly was 
under The auspices of the chapter. Joseph E. Peirson presided^ 
The reviewing stand nearby was occupied by a large chorus of 
public school children, so arranged m costumes o red white 
and blue as to present the appearance of a huge United States 
flag. Speeches on behalf of Berkshire Chapter were made by 
Dr 3. F A. Adams and Edward T. Slocum, and on behalf of the 
national society by Luke S. Stowe of Springfield. WaterF. 
Hawkins made the address of dedication. In a tribute to Col. 
Easton and men like him. who wrought our national mdepend- 
ence. Mr. Hawkins said: i « „ 

"All honor to the settlers of Pontoosuc, to them who wan- 
dered n thrwilderness in a solitary way --^^Z'^^t^Meler- 
aZ.U n'- who with indomitable courage and mcredible exer 

o" what fs worllSt and ^keliest of permanence m our mu^^^ 
life today. Still higher ho™^ '^ f "^^ the r cheerfir fortitude 

;trr Lts w^ttil'^at 1.^:::;>S antties, what un- 
'"""^TeJe'arfthe'lources to which we trace the Pitlsficld of 
todaj.!;: are thejust o^ects of our fe-cnt .-t^^^^^^ ^ 

^pletetl ret^tnU:» ^a^/tSetr t^ghf ^r S 
joices in the felicities of the monient and takes no thoug ^^^ 

Uonsibilities f"' %<=.S^-U3^ry\armea" ured are but a 
fifty years to which Pi"sfaeld s n>st°^ry existence that we 

span in that period of healthful and no"oi a" . , .poj ^e 

beheve ordained for her by a bemgnant P ov^d™c ^.^^^ , 

are Ancients of the earth, and in ""e morn^ g 



360 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

phrase, nor its performance an impractical and a fanciful ideal. 
As honesty, in the lowest view of it, is the best commercial policy, 
so is patriotism the surest promoter of the prosperous community; 
and patriotism, like charity, begins at home." 

On Monday afternoon, a street pageant, illustrative of 
Pittsfield history, interested several thousand spectators. The 
procession, in which about six hundred men, women, and chil- 
dren participated, was composed of scenic floats and costumed 
groups, each representing an episode or period in the past of the 
town, and was the result of the public-spirited effort of the city's 
social, fraternal, and patriotic organizations. The pageant was 
animated, the colors were well selected, and the effects, whether 
stirring or humorous, repaid many laborious weeks of prepara- 
tion. 

The subjects illustrated in the historical pageant were: 
"An Indian camp" (1600); "Early frontiersmen" (1743), "The 
first settlers" (1752); "The blockhouse at Unkamet's crossing" 
(1757); "The first town meeting" (1761); "Making uniforms for 
Capt. Noble's minute men" (1774); "Parson Allen leading 
Pittsfield farmers to the Bennington fight" (1777); "The Peace 
Party" (1783); "Lucretia Williams saving the Old Elm" (1790); 
"Printing the first Pittsfield Sun" (1800); "Wheelocks's dra- 
goons" (1812); "The visit of Lafayette" (1825); "A district 
school" (1830); "A volunteer fire company" (1832); "Life with 
the Shakers" (1836); "Building the Western Railroad" (1841); 
"The Berkshire Jubilee" (1844); "An old-time cattle show" 
(1855); "The Maplewood 'bus" (1858); "Parthenia Fenn and 
Pittsfield women sewing for the soldiers" (1861); "The Allen 
Guard leaving Pittsfield for the front" (1861); and "The City of 
Pittsfield" (1911). While the procession was a lively spectacle, 
it lacked neither a certain educational nor a sentimental value. 

During the day the number of visitors attracted by the cele- 
bration had been greatly increased, the return of many former 
residents had gratified the older citizens, and hotels and hos- 
pitable homes witnessed countless pleasant reunions. Concerts 
by the Governor's Foot Guard Band of Hartford and the Pitts- 
field Military Band enlivened North Street and the Common. 
Although the celebration had been planned with the design of 
making Monday's proceedings of distinctively local and historical 




(J 

5 



CO 

O 

a. 



THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY IN 1911 361 

rather than of more widely popular interest, the popular appre- 
ciation was generous and responsive, and the scene was that of a 
popular festival. 

In the evening, John D. Long of Hingham delivered the 
150th anniversary oration to an audience assembled in the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. John C. Crosby presided at this 
meeting, which was formally the essential observance of the an- 
niversary. The eloquent orator was an old friend of PittsJBeld, 
and could speak to the meeting almost with the intimacy of per- 
sonal acquaintance. Governor of Massachusetts in 1880, '81, 
and '82, and Secretary of the Navy in the cabinet of William 
McKinley, he was esteemed for his record of distinguished public 
services; but, more than that, he was endeared to New England- 
ers by his stalwart belief in their civil institutions and his af- 
fectionate knowledge of their character. 

Near the beginning of his address, Mr. Long said: 
"I desire to felicitate you with no fulsome compliments to 
your community, which in its origin, its history, its consumma- 
tion, is perhaps not better than many another like itself. But 
I approach the theme before me, suggested by the celebration of 
the 1.50th anniversary of your incorporation, and I look back on 
that long vista of years with a feeling of profound respect and 
veneration. You could today have visited shrines of grander 
fame over which temples are wrought by masters of architecture 
and gorgeous with the works of masters of art. You could in 
imagination recreate from Greek and Roman ruins lying before 
your gaze the magnificent grandeur and beauty of dynasties that 
have ruled the world. You could in Westminster Abbey hold 
communion with illustrious dead who were living representatives 
of the most conspicuous achievement and the proudest glory of 
warrior, statesman, orator, poet, scholar, and divine. But I 
know not how it is that all these seem to me of lesser worth 
compared with the humanity and beauty and significance of the 
birthplace of a town like this, where no broken column of fallen 
temples tells of the magnificence and luxury of the few wrung 
from the poverty and degradation of the many; where no statue 
or shrine keeps alive the memory of conqueror, or king, or tyrant; 
but where rather began the growth of a people whose common 
recognition, in town organization, of the equal rights of all men 
could not endure that any child should be uneducated, or that 
any poor should remain destitute, or that any one caste should 
hold supremacy and another be ground under foot, or that any 
slave should breathe Massachusetts air." 



362 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

The general theme of the charming and forceful address was 
the need of applying the spirit of old New England, exemplified 
by the founders of Pittsfield, to the national and social problems 
of modern America, and the peroration was introduced by a 
dramatic fantasy. 

"I have seen among you today, not quite a stranger and yet 
like one who, after long absence, revisits once familiar scenes, a 
venerable man clad in colonial costume, wearing a long coat with 
silver buttons, with his stout calves encased in homespun hose, 
with straps and buckles on his shoes, and ruffles around his 
wrist, and a broad brimmed, three-cornered hat upon his head. 
No spectator seemed to exhibit a deeper interest in your exer- 
cises, and yet it has been an interest tinged with a contemplative 
melancholy, as if he were groping in the past to recall, out of its 
shadows and gloom, scenes and faces that have vanished. Earlier 
in the day you may have noticed him in your most ancient bury- 
ing ground, pushing the grass from only the oldest stones and 
shading his dimmed sight to read the fading names; or visiting 
the spot where the first tavern stood, the proprietor 'allowed by 
the court to draw and sell wine, beer, and strong water'; or 
where was the original blacksmith's shop, or sawmill; or the 
manse of Parson Allen. 

"More than once the tears have filled his eyes. You noted 
the gesture of almost exhausted wonderment with which, stand- 
ing a little apart from the rest, he saw the locomotive thunder 
through the town and bring to your station its freight of pas- 
sengers. It was my good fortune to speak with him a moment; 
and the rich depth of his voice, his stately manner, his quaint 
dialect, his scriptural phrase, struck me like the fragrance that 
lingers around the wood of a perfumed box from distant lands. 

" T never dreamed' said he, 'that I should live to see a day 
like this. The works of the Lord are marvelous and past finding 
out. I yearn for the former time, but I doubt not that in the 
providence of God all this growth and grandeur are for the best. 
I love most to see these happy homes, these beautiful and intel- 
ligent children. I trust they are all nurtured in the fear of the 
Lord. I scarce can comprehend what I see and hear. I am 
bewildered with your libraries, your newspapers, your school- 
books, your many churches, your railroads, and telegraph, and 
telephones, your automobiles and flying machines, your stories 
of a country that is free from British allegiance and that stretches 
from sea to sea, from gulf to arctic zone, and even includes the 
islands of the Orient, ten thousand miles away. I could not 
make out the ensign that floats above us until they told me it 



THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY IN 1911 363 

was the flag of the new repubUc. My eyes were seeking for the 
English colors.' 

"And here the old man reverently removed his hat, and I 
thought I heard something like a prayer for long life to good 
King George. I do not know his name, but doubt not he is 
Jacob Wendell, or John Stoddard, or some other worthy of one 
hundred and fifty years ago. I shall not forget the tremulous 
voice in which, lifting up his hat, he said: 'Lord, now lettest 
Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word; for 
mine eyes have seen Thy salvation which Thou hast prepared 
before the face of all people, a light to lighten the Gentiles and 
the glory of Thy people Israel!' 

"Farewell, brave, generous, true men who founded this good 
town! We venerate you. We take in solemn trust into our 
hands the work of yours." 

It so happened that the people, as they left the church at the 
conclusion of the evening meeting, could realize vividly the 
contrast between the old and new Pittsfield which the orator 
had thus dramatized; for the streets, through which they had 
that afternoon seen pass the figures of Indians and frontiersmen, 
of the first settlers with their teams of oxen, and of Parson Allen, 
riding in a chaise at the head of his embattled farmers, were now 
filled by a parade impressively symbolical of the new Pittsfield 
and of the most recent development of American industry. 
This was a procession of 2,000 operatives from the Pittsfield 
works of the General Electric Company. The men had organized 
the affair at their own initiative, as their contribution to the cele- 
bration. The parade was made brilliant by electrical devices, 
floats, and colored lights, and as it proceeded through the glow 
of the elaborate illuminations on North Street and Park Square, 
the effect was memorably picturesque. 

The Fourth of July celebration on the next day concluded 
the observance of the anniversary. This had been vigorously 
advertised by the publicity and transportation committees, ex- 
cursion trains brought crowds from neighboring towns, and it 
was believed that 50,000 spectators watched the parade of the 
forenoon. The marshal was John Nicholson, high sheriff of the 
county, David J. Gimlich was his chief-of-staff, and John White, 
Harold A. Cooper, Dr. W. J. Mercer, William H. Marshall, 
H. L. Hendee, and Harry D. Sisson led the six divisions, com- 



364 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

prising military organizations, a uniformed regiment of public 
school boys, veteran and active firemen, numerous fraternal and 
labor societies, and a division of thirty-six industrial and com" 
mercial floats. About 3,000 marchers were in line. An exhibi- 
tion of aviation by aeroplane, from a field of the Allen farm near 
the road to Dalton, had been arranged for the afternoon. The 
first display of the kind ever attempted in the county, it was the 
most popular single attraction, perhaps, of the celebration; but 
the aviator, Charles C. Witmer, lost control of his biplane, the 
steering wheel broke, the machine fell, and the flier was carried 
to the House of Mercy, where he eventually recovered from his 
injuries. This was the only accident to mar the events of the 
three days. During the evening, a throng estimated to number 
20,000 people was entertained by band concerts and an uncom- 
mon show of fireworks, in the natural ampitheater south and 
east of Colt Road. 

As souvenirs of the occasion, the financial committee placed 
on sale an anniversary medal, and a tasteful and valuable book 
of portraits and pictures of old and modern Pittsfield, compiled 
by S. Chester Lyon and Linus W. Harger. This book contains 
also the anniversary ode, written by Harlan H. Ballard. 

The earnest eloquence of the speakers and the attention of 
the audiences at the various anniversary meetings, the pageantry 
of the parades, the beauty of the decorations and lighting, the 
size of the crowds of visitors, and the hospitable arrangements 
for securing their safety and comfort, were alike impressive; 
but not a few citizens preferred to be impressed by the unselfish 
spirit of co-operation actuating the hundreds of persons who 
labored, in one way or another, to make the affair successful. 
There was no lack of the sort of civic pride which is executive 
rather than merely critical; and the anniversary observances 
not only affected the sentiments of reminiscence and self-esteem 
but also, in a certain measure, incited to emulation, and unified 
the people of the city. 



CHAPTER XXV 

PITTSFIELD IN 1915 

THE population of Pittsfield was 25,001 in 1905, 32,121 
in 1910, and 39,607 in 1915. The ratio of gain, there- 
fore, between 1910 and 1915 did not quite equal that 
maintained during the five years preceding 1910. There were 
many citizens who had become inclined, after 1900, to allow their 
satisfaction with Pittsfield to depend in great measure, perhaps 
in an unduly great measure, upon the census figures of the grow- 
ing city. To these citizens any slackening of the rate of numeri- 
cal growth was a disappointment; and they encouraged them- 
selves in the belief that in the early part of 1913 the population 
touched 40,000. Certainly industrial conditions in the winter 
of 1913-14 were unfavorable to a gain in population, and there 
was probably a slight loss. Employment was not plentiful, 
either in the textile or the non-textile factories; and, for the 
first time within the recollection of the younger business men, 
the number of vacant dwellings began to be somewhat disquiet- 
ing. 

But in 1915 these conditions seemed to have markedly im- 
proved, and a description of Pittsfield in that year, which shall 
be attempted by this chapter, should premise that the spirit of 
the people was generally sanguine and optimistic, that the manu- 
factories were busy, and that the city, at the point of concluding 
its first quarter-century, was the home of a generally prosperous 
community. 

It is right to premise, too, that there was a more keen, or at 
least a broader, appreciation of the civic problems involved in the 
absorption of new elements of population. Having been com- 
pelled to address themselves chiefly to the task of expanding 
rapidly the physical equipment of the municipality and of the 
public and charitable institutions, the citizens now began to 



366 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

realize the wisdom of both expanding and deepening the civic 
spirit, in order to render that spirit hospitable to the worthy 
aspirations of new-comers. A social observer in the Pittsfield 
of 1915 could not have failed to be impressed by the growing 
readiness with which influential citizens urged the importance 
of developing the civic consciousness, and of inciting the civic 
patriotism of those who only recently had made Pittsfield their 
home. Evidence of this is not difficult to find in the recorded 
opinions of leading men, as, for example, in the reports of the 
addresses at meetings organized for the purpose of welcoming 
newly naturalized citizens to the rights and duties of citizenship. 
To the wish to make the city a good place to live in was added 
the wish to enlist all the people in that cause. 

To the gratification of the latter desire there seemed to exist 
a certain obstacle. This was the fact that a larger proportion 
of the inhabitants than formerly looked upon Pittsfield as a 
temporary residence. While it would be an egregious blunder to 
suppose that the gain in Pittsfield's census between 1900 and 
1915 was dependent upon any class which might be called migra- 
tory, nevertheless it is probably true that an appreciable number 
of the new dwellers would then have spoken of Pittsfield as 
"your", rather than as "our", city. This detachment was as- 
cribable partly to changed conditions of employment, and partly 
to the characteristic deliberation with which the older commun- 
ity had submitted itself to readjustment. The influences which 
were most obviously operative in breaking down this sort of de- 
tachment were those exerted by the large social and fraternal 
organizations, with which the city was supplied far more plenti- 
fully than the town of twenty-five years before. Especially 
useful in this way were such institutions as the Father Mathew 
Total Abstinence Society, the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion, the Boys' Club, and the Working Girls', and Business 
Women's Clubs. It is likely, too, that the city's religious socie- 
ties attached more importance than did those of the town to the 
exercise of social hospitality to strangers, and the parish houses 
of several churches had become effectual social centers. Nor 
should it be forgotten that the large non-sectarian charitable as- 
sociations promoted the amalgamation of the newer with the 
older elements of the community. 



PITTSFIELD IN 1915 367 

In respect of the conduct of public affairs, the Pittsfield of 
1915 was fortunate in that the attitude of detachment, to which 
reference has been made, was scarcely observable. The burdens 
and responsibilities of municipal government were distributed, 
as they should be, without distinction of nativity or length of 
residence in the city. 

The Board of Trade aimed to provide a common meeting 
ground for business and professional men. The Board, with 
about 400 members in 1915 and then under the presidency 
of George A. Newman, maintained offices in the building of the 
Agricultural National Bank on North Street, Its standing com- 
mittees were entitled executive, membership, publicity, civic, 
industrial, mercantile, transportation, and agricultural. A 
salaried secretary was employed. Various matters of interest 
and value were brought to the attention of the public, civic events 
and celebrations of divers sorts were organized, and commercial 
ventures new to the city were investigated and, when approved, 
practically encouraged. To these functions of the Board of 
Trade should be added the work which it indirectly accomplished 
in offering to business men of recent arrival the opportunity of 
wide and immediate acquaintanceship. 

The organization of workmen and artisans into labor unions 
had progressed to such an extent that there were twenty-three 
labor unions and like associations in the city in 1915, a year 
marked by a particularly rapid increase in the local membership 
of these bodies. The Central Labor Union had headquarters 
in a hall in the Shipton building on North Street. The individual 
unions represented occupations so diverse as those of metal 
workers, printers, theater-stage employees, moulders, polishers, 
carpenters, painters, bottlers, barbers, bricklayers, masons, 
plasterers, street railway employees, stationary firemen, plumb- 
ers, steam and gas fitters, and workers in electrical manufactur- 
ing. Although applying themselves primarily to industrial 
questions, the unions in many cases served to unify their mem- 
bers socially and to make a new-comer feel that he was at home. 

The visitor to Pittsfield in 1915 would have found, then, a 
community of diverging interests, but one wherein strong in- 



368 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

fluences, properly encouraged, were at work to unite the several 
elements. 

At the city election of 1915, the number of ballots cast was 
7,219. There were still seven wards, although five had been 
divided, each into two voting precincts. The largest number of 
voters in any single ward went to the polls in Ward Two, where 
1,454 ballots were registered. This ward lay in the northeastern 
section of the city, and included the neighborhood of the works 
of the General Electric Company. There both the business and 
residential development had been brisk. Passing eastward 
along Tyler Street from Grove Street to Woodlawn Avenue, an 
observer might have seen much of the equipment of a distinct 
town — church edifices, business blocks, stores, a moving picture 
theater, and modern residences; and in the vicinity were two 
well-built school houses, sheltering the Crane and the William B. 
Rice Schools, with an aggregate enrolment of 900 pupils. Only 
twenty-five years before, this portion of Tyler Street was little 
different from a secluded country road. 

Although in 1915 the Morningside district exhibited recent 
growth most substantially, there were many indications of such 
growth elsewhere. Residential streets had been opened as far 
on the eastern outskirts of the city as the land surrounding Good- 
rich Pond, and the former premises of the Pleasure Park on Elm 
Street. Along the west side of South Street, the residential 
section extended about two miles from the Park; running north 
and south from West Street, side streets had been occupied as 
far west as Backman Avenue. Toward the northwest, the limits 
of that which had once been the central village now included 
the eastern portion of Lake Avenue, at a distance from the Park 
of more than a mile. On the north, the Russell and Pontoosue 
factory villages were no longer isolated, but had become merged 
in the general residential district spreading in that direction, 
while streets had been opened on the highland immediately east 
of Pontoosue Lake, where numerous families had their dwelling 
houses. Five hundred streets were listed by name in the Pitts- 
field directory of 1915. 

On the picturesque site of the villa successively occupied by 
William C. Allen and Henry C. Valentine, near the eastern shore 



PITTSFIELD IN 1915 369 

of Onota Lake, the most impressive, elaborately adorned and 
costly residence within the city limits, "Tor Court", was erected 
by Warren M. Salisbury of Chicago, who now makes it his sum- 
mer home, having greatly beautified the broad and romantic 
estate. Other notably fine summer residences which grace the 
southern neighborhood of the lake are those of John A. Spoor, 
called "Blythewood Farm", and of the Misses Bryce, called 
"Fort Hill" and built on the eminence on which Ashley's block- 
house of 1757 stood guard over the western valley during the 
French and Indian war. Bordered on the southeast, south, and 
southwest by large private estates, and on the east by the pubhc 
land of Burbank Park, the southern part of Onota Lake and its 
environment are preserved in their rural beauty. 

It may be said, indeed, of a large part of even central Pitts- 
field that it has been enabled to escape the aspect of a manu- 
facturing city and to retain some of the genial, homelike look of a 
trim and prosperous rural town, although more than twenty-fave 
distinct lines of industry are carried on within the city hmits. 
No shops or factories are in operation, for example, in the section 
bounded on the west by North Street and on the south by Tyler 
Street and Dalton Road, or in the section bounded on the north 
by East and Elm Streets and on the west by South Street ihe 
almost complete absence of street fences, the breadth of lawn 
which usually separates the houses from the sidewalks, the gen- 
eral simplicity and diversification of domestic architecture, and 
the agreeable width of the highways, combine to give to most of 
the new residential streets the attractive appearance of refined 
and healthful comfort. The reader will take care to understand 
that this characterization is not intended to be applied to every 
residential district of the city; streets exist where tenemen 
houses are huddled together and poorly built. But the fact that 
the growth of Pittsfield in all directions has been unimpeded by 
any natural barrier has made the city, although a nianufactunng 
one, a place where the conditions of living are wholesome and 
cheerful with fresh air and sunshine. , ^ i 

Unlike the town of former days, the Pittsfield of l^/^ boasted 
of no conspicuous residence within a short radius of the Park, 
ranking relatively with the homes in 1876 of Thomas Allen, Ed- 



370 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

ward Learned, and Mrs. William Pollock. The men of affluence 
of the modern city built residences externally less pretentious, 
surrounded by less ornamental and spacious grounds. At the 
same time there was a noticeable and perhaps an unusual pro- 
portion of homes indicating the possession of both comfortable 
means and good taste. The visitor to Pittsfield in 1915 would 
have found, for example, a number of houses of this description 
recently erected in the quadrilateral bounded by Broad Street, 
South Street, Crofut Street, and Pomeroy Avenue. 

If he had chosen to glance at the business center and to begin 
a brief tour of inspection at the railroad station on West Street, 
he would have found two dwelling houses surviving on West 
Street between the station and the Park, these houses being on 
the south side of the thoroughfare. Going north on North 
Street he would not have seen a dwelling house on the west side 
until he reached Bradford Street, nor on the east side, except 
St. Joseph's parochial residence and an adjacent dwelling, until 
he had passed the Maplewood. North of Bradford Street, on 
the west side, were several business blocks; while on the east 
side substantial buildings for commercial purposes had been 
erected on the south corner of Maplewood Avenue and on both 
corners of Orchard Street. Trade overflowed from North Street 
into several of the side streets running east and west from it; 
but the observations of our visitor of 1915 would probably have 
led him to conclude that the general tendency of trade in the city 
had been northward rather than toward the east or west. As 
for the modern value of North Street real estate, a parcel on the 
west side, at the south corner of Burbank Place and having a 
frontage of seventy feet on North Street, with a depth of two 
hundred, was sold for $148,500 in 1915. 

Our first chapter offered to the reader a list of the principal 
mercantile establishments doing business in 1876. Some of the 
present business firms are directly descended from concerns upon 
that list, and therefore have been operative in Pittsfield for at 
least forty years without interruption, and in several cases for a 
much longer period. This can be said of the concerns of Gilbert 
West and Son (groceries), W. G. Backus' Sons (stoves and plumb- 
ing), the W. H. Cooley Company (groceries), the Peirson Hard- 



PITTSFIELD IN 1915 S71 

ware Company, John H. Enright (boots and shoes), Smith and 
Dodge (harness), H. S. Taylor and Son (men's clothing), Clarence 
H. Waite (drugs), Thomas Behan (harness), the Casey and Bacon 
Company (wholesale groceries). Prince and Walker (carpets), 
O. Root and Sons (shoes), England Brothers (department store), 
Robbins, Gam well, and Company (steam fittings), and J. R. 
Newman and Sons (men's clothing). The number of so-called 
"neighborhood" stores, or establishments managed on a modest 
scale and in localities remote from the business center, is curiously 
large. For instance, there were about ninety grocery stores in 
the city in 1915. Many of them were conducted in small dwell- 
ing houses and sold, of course, merely a few household supplies of 
minor importance. The city contained twelve stores dealing in 
dry goods, six in books and stationery, thirteen in drugs, twenty- 
four in boots and shoes, sixteen in men's clothing, fourteen in 
house-furnishing supplies, thirty-six in meat, seventeen in 
plumbing and heating appliances, fourteen in jewelry, and twenty 
in automobile supplies. 

The buildings on North Street south of the railroad bridge 
contained the banking rooms and offices of all the financial in- 
stitutions. Therein also, and in the blocks on Bank Row, were 
the oflfices of the practicing lawyers, of whom there were thirty- 
eight, and the oflBces of most, though not all, of the men and 
women engaged in other professions — for example, of the fifty- 
seven physicians and surgeons. 

The concentration of so much mercantile, financial, and pro- 
fessional activity in North Street produced there a somewhat 
troublous condition of traffic, especially in the summer months, 
when tourists by motor car were numerous; and the regulation 
of this traffic had become not the least important duty of the 
police force. Modern Pittsfield has probably more reason to be 
grateful for the spacious width of its main thoroughfares than for 
any other single physical advantage. Assuredly the visitor to 
the city in 1915 would have been impressed by the well-ordered 
capacity of North Street for business or pleasure, and at night 
by the uniform system of its tastefully mounted and brilliant elec- 
tric street lamps. 

North Street was not adorned by the building which in the 



372 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

opinion of not a few is the most artistically designed public edi- 
fice in the city. The post office, facing west upon the junction of 
Allen, Dunham, and Fenn Streets, did a lively business in 1915, 
of which the receipts for twelve months ending on June fifteenth 
of that year were about $130,000. Thirty-five years before, in 
1880, the annual receipts were approximately $10,000. The 
postmaster in 1915 was John G. Orr. From 1861 to 1881 the 
position of postmaster was filled by Henry Chickering; from 1881 
to 1883 by William F. Osborne; from 1883 to 1887 by Thomas H. 
Learned; from 1887 to 1891, and from 1895 to 1898, by William 
J. Coogan; from 1891 to 1895, and from 1899 to 1916, by John 
G. Orr. Mr. Orr was succeeded in the latter year by Edward T. 
Scully. 

Returning to the Park by way of Allen Street, the visitor 
would have passed the closely adjacent central fire station, the 
police station, and the city hall, the latter being the town hall 
erected in 1832 and supplemented, after 1895, by plain, brick 
additions on the north. He would have found the tracks, wires, 
and poles of a trolley street railway encircling the verdant and 
elm-shaded oval of the Park, but here again he could not have 
escaped the impression of spaciousness and of the pleasant com- 
mingling of the aspect of a modern city with that of a dignified 
country town. Toward the southwest he could have seen, amid 
the trees near the north corner of Church and South Streets, the 
square mansion built by Ashbel Strong in 1792, and now the 
oldest house in central Pittsfield unchanged in respect of site, 
and least changed from its original appearance; while toward 
the north he could have seen the animated and modernly equip- 
ped main street of a busy manufacturing city. 

The oldest house now standing on East Street is the St. 
Stephen's rectory, on the east corner of Wendell Avenue. This 
was built during the Revolution by Colonel James Easton on 
the land which is at present the lawn of the court house. The 
Plunkett house, still standing near the west corner of Appleton 
Avenue and East Street, was built about 1798 by Thomas Gold. 
Having become the summer residence of Nathan Appleton of 
Boston, it was the house described by Henry W. Longfellow, 
Mr. Appleton's son-in-law, in his poem of "The Old Clock on the 



PITTSFIELD IN 1915 373 

Stairs". Since the writing of the poem, however, the appearance 
of the house has been radically altered, and the ancient timepiece 
has been removed from its station in the hall. The present resi- 
dence of George C. Harding, on the east corner of East Street 
and Bartlett Avenue, was built by the town for a town house and 
academy in 1793, on land now occupied by the head of Allen 
Street on Park Square, whence it was removed in 1832. 

Of the twenty religious edifices in Pittsfield the oldest in re- 
spect of unaltered appearance, within and without, is the meeting 
house of the Second Congregational Church, on First Street. 
The edifice of the First Baptist Church, on North Street, was 
erected in 1849; but this was practically rebuilt in 1874. A gen- 
eral condition of amity has always inspired the relations between 
the different religious sects in Pittsfield, and such a condition is 
evident today. Not only have sectarian feuds of a seriously 
disturbing sort been almost wholly absent from the community 
life, but there have been many instances of mutual help and co- 
operation. Perhaps Pittsfield has become so familiar with this 
condition as to be not quite appreciative of its social benefit. 
Eight Protestant forms of belief are represented in the city by 
fourteen organized parishes and societies. Thirteen Roman 
Catholic clergymen, distributed among seven parishes, adminis- 
ter to the religious needs of about one-half of the city's popula- 
tion, according to an informal estimate. There are three Jewish 
congregations. 

In the field of public education, the authorities of 1915 were 
not troubled as their predecessors had been by the inadequate 
capacity of their schoolhouses, except in the case of the high 
school building. The enrolment of the high school was 1,155. 
A class of 148 was graduated, the largest in the history of the 
school and larger than the aggregate daily attendance of only 
thirty years previous. Of this number, forty-two entered college 
in September. The enrolment at all the public schools was 
6,758. The number of teachers employed was 244; the average 
cost of the education of each attending pupil was $34.89, and 
the aggregate valuation of the school buildings was about 
$1,100,000. Pressure upon the parochial schools of St. Joseph's 
was relieved during the year by the remodeling of the house 



374 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

numbered 22 on Maplewood Avenue for use as an annex to the 
parochial school building on First Street. 

The pupils of the public schools enjoy the use of the Common 
on First Street for the sports of baseball and football, where 
football contests between teams representing the local high school 
and similar institutions of other cities interest numerous spec- 
tators. American intercollegiate football, once a favorite and 
strenuous diversion of Pittsfield's young men, is not now played 
in the city by those beyond high school age. Nor is professional 
baseball now played there, although the game of baseball stands 
first in the affections of a great majority of the people. Lawn 
tennis and golf have many devotees, while the most popular in- 
door athletic sports are basketball and bowling; and the various 
gymnastic and physical culture classes of the large young people's 
associations of both sexes are profitably patronized. The tra- 
ditional Pittsfield liking for lake and brook fishing, and for hunt- 
ing partridge and woodcock, still survives, and is made still 
possible of gratification at certain seasons by the enforcement of 
protective game laws during most of the year. Motor vehicles, 
procurable at a comparatively low cost, have almost wholly 
superseded horses, except for industrial and commercial pur- 
poses; and motoring, no longer a luxury reserved for the rich, 
is a pastime enjoyed by many. 

Entertainment by means of moving pictures was the form of 
theatrical amusement most widely enjoyed in the Pittsfield of 
1915, when it was provided by seven establishments. The 
Colonial Theater, however, was occupied by a stock company 
of actors in the summer, and occasionally by traveling organiza- 
tions during the winter; and the program offered at the Majestic 
and the Union Square was diversified by that variety of stage 
entertainment which had become known in the United States, 
by an odd misnomer, as vaudeville. The number of public balls 
was singularly large and between Christmas and the beginning 
of Lent, and during the weeks immediately following Easter, the 
Armory and the Masonic Temple were the scenes of many of 
these events, attended either for the benefit of a charity or of an 
association. Amateur theatrical productions, except on a pre- 
tentious scale and under professional direction, seem to have 
passed out of their former vogue. 



PITTSFIELD IN 1915 375 

Among the inhabitants of the town there existed a small 
leisurely, if not a leisure, class, which is not so evident in the 
city of today. Social life is affected by the fact that the influ- 
ential men and women carry their fair share of the community's 
burdens. The avocations of business and professional men are 
apparently often chosen with a view toward public usefulness; 
women, rich and poor alike, are wont to devote much of the time 
and energy unconsumed by their personal affairs to philanthropic 
or educational activities. The people of the city, in short, have 
a good deal to do — more to do, it is likely, than had the people 
of the town. Thus engaged, the people in general are charac- 
terized by a community temper that is evenly balanced. Con- 
siderable antagonisms between the various elements of popula- 
tion have not been aroused. The local relations between the 
employers and the employed, during the period covered by this 
book, have not been disturbed. The stupendous blow of the 
vast European war of 1914 has brought about no serious cleavage 
between the foreign-born citizens of different nationalities in 
Pittsfield, or between American-born citizens whose sympathies 
are oppositely enlisted by the warring powers. Howsoever 
agitated temporarily, both civic and social life usually regain 
their equilibrium with a pacific promptness which was not charac- 
teristic of the somewhat isolated community of village times. 

This absence of such prolonged disturbances in Pittsfield social 
life as vexed the secluded rural town is partly due also to the 
fact that the modern city is not secluded and stands in closer 
touch than did the town with other communities. The improved 
methods of communication, the influx of new residents from many 
different states of the Union and from many different countries 
of the world, the broadening of mental outlook by better news- 
papers, a better public library and museum of art, and better 
schools have combined to break down the physical and social 
isolation of the town among the hills. A century ago it was said 
of the towns in central and northern Berkshire that they belonged 
to Massachusetts only by virtue of a surveyor's boundary, that 
the political, social, and even religious influences from the other 
counties of the Commonwealth became exhausted by an attempt 
to cross the barrier of the Hoosac range, and that Pittsfield, find- 



376 HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD 

ing the most convenient outlet for trade and travel to be through 
the Taconics and down the Hudson River, might in a certain 
respect be considered a New York, rather than a Massachusetts, 
town. While this is, of course, no longer true, the city today, 
so far as it is affected at all by any great metropolitan center, is 
subject to the influence and attraction of New York, no less than 
to those of Boston. 

Our first chapter suggested that such democratic institutions 
as the town meeting and the volunteer fire department tended 
to eliminate caste distinctions in old-time Pittsfield. The de- 
velopment of such distinctions in the modern city is opposed by 
the workings of the cosmopolitan spirit which the present chapter 
has attempted to indicate. It was the pleasantry of Oliver Wen- 
dell Holmes which described the sacrosanct dominance of a 
"Brahman class" in the Boston of his generation. The doctor's 
vivacious fancy would probably have been put to the exercise 
of less ingenuity in discovering the ascendancy of any class of that 
sort in the village than in the city of Pittsfield. The conjecture 
may at least be hazarded that the people, in matters political, 
social, and intellectual, are led not so often now as once they 
were by individual men and women, but rather, for better or 
worse, by ideas. Although the form of city government adopted 
by Pittsfield has not constantly enlisted in the conduct of mu- 
nicipal affairs the interest of so many able men as did the govern- 
mental systems of the town and fire district, there is probably a 
less amount now than formerly of the personal control of public 
proceedings by a few individuals. 

On January third, 1916, the city's twenty-fifth birthday was 
observed at the Colonial Theater by some additions to the cere- 
monies of the inauguration of the twenty-sixth municipal admin- 
istration. Addresses were made by Charles E. Hibbard, the 
first mayor, and Walter F. Hawkins, the first city solicitor. The 
audience was large and attentive. Many of the older people 
were moved to recall the story of the first quarter-century of the 
city, to assure themselves that the story was not discreditable, 
and to confront without misgivings the query expressed in the 
noble lines of the poem by Morris Schaff , their fellow townsman, 



PITTSFIELD IN 1915 377 

which he published in 1890 and called "A Word to Pittsfield, 

on her change from town to city government". 

"Proud town! Aloft in splendor thou hast borne 
Supreme through languid peace and war's red flame 
The refulgent glory of a spotless name. 
That radiant gem by queenly Rome was worn 
Till civic change; and then — Lo! hear her mourn 
From Cato's grave! — its light was quenched. Hot 

shame 
Suffused her face. Truth fled. Corruption came, 
And by her fangs that mighty heart was torn. 
And shall her fate be thine.'^ Thy doom to see 
Thy sons grow cheap? Bold courage leave their eyes 
Spurned by the laureled hills that round them rise? 
Or will they like the mountains valiant stand. 
Each breast a soaring peak and beacon be. 
Whose fires shall burn with breath of Glory fanned?" 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Academy of Music, 24, 101, 104, 323 
Adam, Robert W., 348 
Adams, Dr. J. F. A., 219 
Agricultural National Bank, 260 
Agricultural Society, Berkshire, 13, 93 
Ahavez Sholam, Society of, 173 
Allen, Thomas, 185 

Residence of, 6 
Allen, John F., 306 
American Congress of Churches, 26 
American House, 327 
Amusements 

In 1876. 12 

In 1915. 374 
Anniversary Celebration, The 150th, 

352 
Ansha Amonim, Society, 173 
Anti-tuberculosis Association, 225 
Associated Charities, 231 
Athenaeum and Museum, 175 
Atwater, Charles, 267 
Axtell, William D., 308 

Backus, William G., 61 
Bailey, Dr. Charles, 333 
Balance Rock trust, 120 
Balloon races. 100 
Banks, 259 

Bank deposits, growth of, 1876- 
1916, 259 
Baptist churches, 162 
Barker, Charles T., 251 
Barker, J. and Bros. Mfg. Co., 251 
Barker, James M., 340 

Speech at inauguration of first 
city government. 75 
Barker. John V., 251 
Barker, Otis R., 251 
Bartlett, William Francis, 46 
Bel Air Mfg. Co., 252 
Berkshire Agricultural Society, 13, 93 
Berkshire .\thenaeum, 175 

Loan art exhibition, 176 

Renewal of circulating library, 
177 

Enlargement of building, 178 



Gift of museum by Zenaa Crane, 

181 
Reorganization of corporation, 

182 
List of officers, 1872-1916, 185 
Berkshire Brewing Association, 247 
Berkshire County Eagle, 307 
Berkshire County Home for Aged 

Women, 224 
Berkshire County Savings Bank, 262 
Berkshire Evening Eagle, 309 
Berkshire Hills, The, 312, 314 
Berkshire House, 328 
Berkshire Life Insurance Company, 

264 
Berkshire Loan and Trust Co., 261 
Berkshire Manufacturing Co., 250 
Berkshire Musical Festival Associa- 
tion, 102 
Berkshire Mutual Fire Insurance Co., 

263 
Berkshire Post, No. 197, G. A. R., 238 
Berkshire Resort Topics, 314 
Berkshire Street Railway Co., 81 
Berkshire Sunday Record, 313 
Berkshire Woolen Co., 252 
Bishop, Henry W., 230 
Bishop Memorial Training School for 

Nurses, 211 
Blodgett, Benjamin C. music school, 

145 
Boards of Public Works, members of, 

118 
Board of Trade, 367 
Boat Club, 320 
Boltwood, Edward, 264 
Bowerman, Samuel W.. 58 
Boylan, Rev. Charles J., 158 
Boyle, Rev. James, 157 
Boys' Club of Pittsfield, 198 

Erection by Zenas Crane of new 

building, 199 
Camp Russell, 200 
Briggs, George P., 55 
Briggs, Henry Shaw, 278 
Brown, Nathan Gallup, 57 



382 



INDEX 



Burbank, Abraham, 59 

Last will of, 39 
Burbank Hotel, 328 
Burke, Charles Eugene, 281 
Burke, Rev. R. S. J., 156 
Business Men's Association, 318 
Business Women's Club, 202 

Campbell, George W., 50 
Casey, Michael, 240 
Casino, 325 
Catholic churches, 154 
Celebrations : 

Of the Fourth of July in 1881, 17 

Labor Day in 1887, 18 

Regimental reunions in 1887, 18 

Of the Fourth of July in 1898, 97 

Regimental reunions in 1912, 98 

The 150th anniversary celebra- 
tion in 1911, 351 

25th anniversary of the inaugu- 
ration of first city government, 
376 
Cemeteries, 174 
Chamberlin, William H., 237 
Charities, 221 

Charity balls, 102 
Chickering, Henry, 307 
Chief engineers of fire department, 

292, 300 
Churches, 148 

In 1915, 373 
City charter, 64 

Of 1875, 64 

Of 1886, 66 

Proposed charter of 1888, 68 

Passed by legislature in 1889, 69 

Discussion of, in 1890, 70 

Approved by town, 71 

Changes in 1895, 125 

Proposed new charter in 1904, 
126 

Agitation for revision in 1910, 
127 

Vote on change of form in 1911, 
128 
City clerks, list of, 120 
City government, 108 

Inauguration of first city govern- 
ment, 74 
City hall, 118 
City Savings Bank, 262 
City solicitors, list of, 120 
Clapp, Edwin, 56 
Clapp, Thaddeus, 253 
Clary, David A., 332 



Clubs, 318 

Clymer, Rev. John F., 170 

Collins, Dwight M., 257 

Collins, D. M. and Co., 256 

Colonial Theater, 101, 325 

Company E, Second Battalion, 6th 

Brigade, M. V. M., 234 
Company F, Second Infantry, M.V. 
M., 98 

Mustered in, 244 

List of officers, 244 

Duty on Mexican border, 244 
Colby, John L., 234 
Colt, James D., 50 
Colt, Henry, 60 
Colt, Thomas, 49 
Colt, Thomas G., 235 
Coliseum, 18 

Congregational churches, 168 
Coogan, Owen, 58 
Coogan, Owen and Sons, 250 
Coogan, William J., 334 
Coolidge, Dr. Frederic S., 226 
Country Club, 99, 319 
Courts, police and district, 277 
Crane, Zenas, 

Gift of Museum of Natural His- 
tory and Art, 181 

Gift of building for Boys' Club, 
199 
Crane, Zenas Marshall, 224 
Crosby, John, 288 
Cutting, Walter, 240 

Daily News, 312 

Daughters of American Revolution, 
Peace Party Chapter, 242 

Davis, Dr. Wm. V. W., 150 

Dawes, Henry L., 336 

Public reception of, in 1893, 95 

Day Nursery Association, 226 

District Court of Central Berkshire, 
277 

Dope Club, 315 

Dowling Camp, Spanish War Veter- 
ans, 244 

Dunham, Jarvis N., 332 

Dutton, George N., 331 

Eagle, Berkshire County, 307 
Eagle, Berkshire Evening, 309 
Easton tavern marker, dedication of, 

358 
Eaton, Crane and Pike Co., 84, 245 
Electric lighting, introduction of, 23 
Electrical manufacturing, 255 



INDEX 



383 



Elm Street Baptist Chapel, 164 
Empire Theater, 325 
England, Moses, 334 
Evening Journal, 310 
Evening Times, 313 
Executions by hanging, 289 
Explosion of boiler at Morewood Lake 
102 

Farnham dam and reservoir, 114 

Father Mathew Total Abstinence 
Society, 195 
List of presidents, 195 
Erection of new building, 197 
Ladies' Aid Society, 197 

Feeley, John, 350 

Financial institutions, 259 

Fire department, 290 

Fire district, 41 

Last 6re district officers, 73 

Fires : 

Weller block in 1881, 20 
Academy of Music in 1912, 103, 

301 
Between 1876-1891, 299 
Between 1891-1916, 301 

First Baptist Church, 162 

First Church of Christ, Congrega- 
tional, 148 

First Church of Christ. Scientist, 172 

Flynn, Daniel P., 287 

Fosburg, Robert L. Jr., trial of, 103 

Francis, Almiron D., 334 

Francis, J. Dwight, 253 

Fraternal orders, 318 

Frothingham, Louis A., remarks at 
laying of corner stone of 
Morningside Baptist Church, 
354 

Fuller, Charles W., 289 

Gamwell, Lorenzo H., 333 
Gamwell, William W., 273 
Garfield, Harry A., extracts from ad- 
dress at 150th anniversary 
celebration, 355 
General Electric Co. 
Pittsfield works, 82 
Purchases Stanley Electric Man- 
ufacturing Co., 272 
Expansion of Moriiingside plant, 
274 
Gimlich, Jacob, 350 
Girls' League, 203 
Goodrich, Alonzo E., 53 
Goodrich, Chauncey, 59 



"Goveriiment mill", 28 
Grand Army of the Republic in Pitts- 
field, 234 
Institution of W. W. Rockwell 

Post, No. 125, 235 
List of commanders of Rockwell 

Post, 235 
Women's Relief Corps auxiliary 

to Rockwell Post, 235 
Institution of Berkshire Post No. 

197, 238 
Commanders of Berkshire Post, 

238 
Organization of Berkshire Wo- 
men's Relief Corps No. 129, 
238 
Grand Theater, 325 
Greylock Hook and Ladder Co., 298 
"Greytower", 6 
Gunn, Samuel M., 284 



Haeger, Rev. John D., 168 

Hall, Miss Mira H., school for girls, 

146 
Hall. Timothy, 284 
Harding, James, 305 
Harrison, Rev. Samuel, 153 
Hawkins, Walter F., extracts from 
address at dedication of Eas- 
ton tavern tablet, 359 
Hibbard, Charles E., extracts from 
address at 150th anniversary 
celebration, 355 
High school, 140 

Principals, 1876-1916, 142 
Hillcrest Hospital, 228 
Hinsdale, Frank W., 344 
Historical pageant of 1911, 360 
Historical sites marked in 1911, 353 
Hotels: 

1876-1891, 24, 327 
1891-1916, 82, 327 
Housatonic Engine Company, 296 
Houses: 

Conspicuous houses in 1876, 6 
Old houses in 1915, 372 
House of Mercy, 205 
Bazar of 1874. 207 
Incorporation, 207 
Opening of new building in 1878, 

210 
First training school for nurses, 

210 
Henry W. Bishop third Memorial 
Training School for Nurses, 
211 



384 



INDEX 



Erection of new building in 1902, 

212 
List of medical directors, 213 
Growth in 1915, 215 
List of officers, 215 
Hull, James W„ 349 

Industries, 245 
Insurance companies, 263 

Jacobson and Brandow Co., 250 
Jenkins, Rev. Jonathan L., 148 
Jewish religious societies, 173 
Jones, Edward D., 340 
Jones, E. D. and Sons Co., 247 
Journal, Evening, 310 

Kellogg, Charles W., 345 

Kellogg, Ensign H., 54 

Keneseth Isreal, Congregation of, 173 

Kernochan, Francis E., 56 

Kindergarten Association, 225 

Kindergartens, 143 

Kittle. James, 239 

Labor unions, 367 

Laflin, George H., 339 

Learned, Edward, 57 

Learned, George Y., 334 

Learned, George Y., Engine Com- 
pany, 296 

Lenox Life, 314 

Leonard, Michael, 288 

Library, public, 175 

Long, John D., extracts from anni- 
versary address, 1911, 361 

Lutheran Church, 168 

Manning, John H., 346 
Majestic Theater, 327 
Manufacturing, 27, 245 
Manufacturing, electrical, 265 
Maplewood Hotel, 329 
Maplewood Institute, 144 
Mayors, list of, 121 
Memorial Day, first observance of, 

234 
Mercer, Dr. William M., 345 
Merrill, John E., 333 
Merrill, Justus, 19 
Methodist Episcopal Church, 169 

Epworth Mission, 171 
Military organizations, 233 
Miller, Kelton B., gift of Abbot Park, 

119 



Minahan, Luke J., 330 

Mink, William, 306 

Monday Evening Club, 321 

Morning Call, 313 

Morning Press, 313 

Morningside Baptist Church, 163 

Laying of corner stone, 354 
Morrissey, Rev. P. W., extracts from 
anniversary address, 1911, 356 
Morton, S. W., Engine Company, 298 
Munyan, Dewitt C, 62 
Museum of Natural History and Art, 
181 

Opening of building, 182 

Enlargements of, 183 

Resolution of thanks to Zenas 
Crane, 183 

Contents of Museum in 1915, 184 
Musgrove Knitting Co., 258 
Musical events, 25, 102 

News. Daily, 312 

Newspapers. 303 

Newton, Rev. William Wilberforce, 
165 

North Street: 
In 1876, 4 

Building on, 1876-1890, 19 
Building on, 1891-1916, 85 
Description of. in 1915, 370 

Notre Dame Church, 160 

Oatman, Hiram T., 312 
Oman, Thomas A., 347 
Orchard Street school house, 136 
Osceola mill, 256 
Outdoor sports, 99, 374 

Paddock, Dr. Franklin K., 217 

Park and Plavground Association 227 

Park Club, 319 

Parks, 118 

Parker. John C, 53 

Peck, Jabez L., 122 

Peck, J. L. and T. D. Manufacturing 

Co., 252 
Peirson, Henry M., 332 
Pilgrim Memorial Church, 154 
Pingree, Thomas P., 333 
Pittsfield Anti-tuberculosis Associa- 
tion, 225 

Erection of Coolidge Memorial 
house, 226 
Pittsfield: 

In 1872, 2 

Residences in 1876, 5 



INDEX 



385 



Social life in 1876, 10 

Town government, 32 

Growth 1890-1916, 79 

Strain of expansion of, 84 

Census of 1910, 90 

In the Spanish War, 97 

City government, 108 

Description of, in 1915, 365 

Social life in 1915, 375 
Pittsfield Bicycle Club, 321 
Pittsfield Boat Club, 320 
Pittsfield Coal Gas Co., 258 
Pittsfield Co-Operative Bank, 263 
Pittsfield Day Nursery Association, 226 
Pittsfield Electric Co., 29, 259 
Pittsfield Electric Light Co., 258 
Pittsfield Electric Street Railway Co., 

80 
Pittsfield Illuminating Co., 259 
Pittsfield Journal Co., 311 
Pittsfield Kindergarten Association, 

225 
Pittsfield Manufacturing Co., 252 
Pittsfield National Bank, 261 
Pittsfield Publishing Co., 312 
Pittsfield Shakers, 94 
Pittsfield Sun, 303 
Pittsfield Symphony Society, 102 
Pittsfield Theater Co., 326 
Pittsfield Veteran Firemen's Associa- 
tion, 300 
Pittsfield Visiting Nurse Association, 

230 
Playgrounds, 119 
Pleasure Park, 98 
Plunkett, Charles T., 345 
Plunkett, Mrs. Thos. F., 216 
Plunkett, William R., 186 
Police force, 38, 284 
Police stations, 283, 287 
Pomeroy, Edward, 62 
Pomeroy, Theodore, 52 
Pomeroy> Robert, 61 

"The Homestead", 6 
Pomeroy Wooldj Co., 251 
Pontoosuc Woolen Manufacturing 

Co., 253 
Poor relief, 38 
Postmasters, 372 
Post office, 372 

Discussion of site for new post 
office, 105 
Power, John T., 62 
Presidential elections in Pittsfield, 23, 

129 
Protectives Company, 295, 298 
Purcell, Rev. Edward H., 154 



Quackenbush, Cebra, 328 
Quevillon, Rev. Joseph, 160 

Railroad station, building of new, 106 

Railways, street, 22, 81 

Read, Franklin F., 343 

Record, Berkshire Sunday, 313 

Redfield, Charles B., 49 

Renne, William, 336 

Rice, A. H. Co., 249 

Rice, William B., services on school 
committee, 134 

Richardson, Henry H., 236 

Robbins, Oliver W., 335 

Roberts, Dr. Oscar S., 347 

Rockwell, Julius, 261 

Rockwell Post, No. 125, 235 

Roosevelt, Theodore, injury to, 95 

Root, Graham A., 288 

Root, John Allen, 336 

Russell, Franklin W., 346 

Russell, Hezekiah S., 124 

Russell, Solomon Lincoln, 54 

Russell, Solomon Nash, 254 

Russell, Zeno, 53 

Russell, The S. N. and C. Manufac- 
turing Co., 254 

Salisbury, Miss Mai^y E., school for 

girls, 146 
Saturday Blade, 314 
SchaflF, Morris, poem on change from 
town to city government, 377 
Schools, 39, 130 

Building of new schoolhouses, 

1883-1891, 137 
St. Joseph's parochial school, 143 
Building of new schoolhouses, 

1895-1915, 139 
Private schools for boys, 146 
In 1915, 373 
School committees, chairmen of, 138 
School districts, abolition of, 131 
School superintendents, 132, 138 
Second Adventist Christian Church, 

172 
Second Congregational Church, 153 
Selectmen, list of, 1876-1891, 36 
Sewers: 

1876-1891, 43 

Building of new system of sewers, 
109 
Sheriffs of Berkshire County, 288 
Shire City Club, 321 
Shoe manufacturing, 248 
Silk manufacturing, 249 



386 



INDEX 



Sisters of St. Joseph, building of con- 
vent and academy, 156 
Smart, Rev. I. Chipman, extracts 
from anniversary address, 
1911, 356 
Smith, Dr. Abner, M., 62 
Smith, John S., 239 
Smith, Joseph E. A., 315 
Smith, Rev. Terence N., 156 
Smith, Walter B., 282 
Sons of the Revolution, Berkshire 

Chapter, 243 
Sons of Veterans, Gen. W. F. Bart- 

lett Camp, 241 
South Congregational Church, 152 
Spanish War Veterans, 244 
Spear, Rev. Charles V., 145 
Springside Park, 119 
Stanley Electric Manufacturing Co., 
'30 

Growth, 83 

Early officers of. 267, 270 

Sale of, to F. W. Roebling, 271 

Sale of, to General Electric Com- 
pany, 272 
Stanley Laboratory Co., 268 
Stanley, William, 275 
Stearns, D. & H. Co., 250 
Stevenson, John M., 263 
Stores: 

In 1876, 4 

In 1915, 370 
St. Charles' Church, 158 
St. Joseph's Church, 154 

Parochial school, 143 
St. Mark's Church, 159 
St. Martin's Episcopal Church, 168 
St. Mary of the Morning Star Church, 

159 
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, 165 
Stock farms, 94 
Streets, 37 

Paving of, 110 
Street lighting: 

1876-1891, 44 

1891-1916, 117 
Street railways, 22, 81 
Sunday Morning Call, 312, 314 
Sun-dial in Park, presentation of by 

Peace Party Chapter, 243 
Sun, Pittsfield, 303 
Sun Printing Co., 305 

Tack manufacturing, 248 

Taconic mill, 255 

Taft, Henry Walbridge. 339 



Teeling, William H., 292 
Telephone, introduction of, 22 
Tel-electric Piano Player Co., 250 
Terry Clock Company, 28 
Textile manufacturing, 250 
Theaters, 322 
Third National Bank. 261 
Thompson, Rev. John W., 171 
Tillotson. William E., 257 
Tillotsbn, W. E. Manufacturing Co., 

84, 256 
Tornado of 1879, 19 
Town clerks, list of, 1876-1891, 36 
Town government, 32 

Last town officers, 72 
Town meetings. 21 
Character of. 34 
Last town meeting, 72 
Town treasurers, list of, 1876-1891, 

36 
Training school for teachers, 143 
Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church, 

171 
Triumph Voting Machine Co., 250 
Tucker, Joseph, 280 

Union Co-Operative Bank, 263 

Union for Home Work, 25, 221 
Presidents, 223 

Union Square Theater, 327 

Unity Church, 164 

United Spanish War Veterans, or- 
ganization of Richard Dowling 
Camp, 244 

Van Sickler, Martin, 252 
Vermilye, Dr. W. E., 220 
Visiting Nurse Association, 230 
Volunteer fire companies. 290, 296 

Warriner, John R., 260 

Waterman, Andrew J., 335 

Water supply: 

1876-1891, 42 

Additions to waterworks. 111 
Building of Farnham reservoir, 
114 

Wednesday Morning Club, 321 

Weller, Israel C, 237 

Wendell Hotel, 329 

Wentworth, Dr. Walter H., 347 

West's block, 3 

West. John C. 331 

Whelden, Charles M.. 237 

Whiting, William W., 124 

Whittlesey. William A., 342 



INDEX 387 

Wilcox, Marshall, 344 Camp Merrill, 193 

Willis, George S. Jr., 292 Erection of new building, 194 

Wilson, James & E. H., 255 Women's Auxiliary, 192 

Wood, Edgar M., 343 Young Men's Society of 1831, 190 

Wood, Oliver L., 239 Young Women's Home Association, 

Working Girls' Club, 201 202 

Announcement of new building 

for Working Girls' and Busi- 

Young Men's Association of 1865, ness Women's Clubs and Girls' 

191 League, 203 
Young Men's Christian Association: 

Formation of Pittsfield branch, Zion's Evangelical Lutheran Church, 

191 168 



II nn 



7R 







<*='. 




A^^ 



S- 





% A-" •#% 



o V 




^. 





,V 



'b V" 



kV 



,0' 

0^ 



A 



-^.^^ 




,-5^ 



V , ^' 







i'^-'*. 




•• .-^-o^ -W^': ^=; 



0-/ 



.^ 







\< ^ s ' ' ' 



<-^' 











.V 



.f^ 



^^ 



.V 







.0' 













^^-n^. 



<<&■ c ° " " ♦ <*^ 




U xV^ 

VV 






* -C^ >V>- o H/ 'di^ \n * A * "^Jk 



^^•n^ 










A. 



<". 



V 






,4q. 



> 









^. 



,^ 



S^'' 



4 c) 










"^^ 

^ 




<*► 









,-tV" 



A^ 












■^^ 



a\ 



A 



.^^ 






^0 



^^^ 



^0 









'^ov*-' :^ 



.^^ 



^o 







^^. 



o 



" .^^ 



<^. 



.<5> c, ° " « « <^^ 





